It is highly doubtful if the detailed conditions that brought about the

evolution of forms like _teeth_ and _geese_ from _tooth_ and _goose_

would have been potent enough to allow the native linguistic feeling to

win through to an acceptance of these new types of plural formation as

psychologically possible. This feeling for form as such, freely

expanding along predetermined lines and greatly inhibited in certain

directions by the lack of controlling types of patterning, should be

more clearly understood than it seems to be. A general survey of many

diverse types of languages is needed to give us the proper perspective

on this point. We saw in the preceding chapter that every language has

an inner phonetic system of definite pattern. We now learn that it has

also a definite feeling for patterning on the level of grammatical

formation. Both of these submerged and powerfully controlling impulses

to definite form operate as such, regardless of the need for expressing

particular concepts or of giving consistent external shape to particular

groups of concepts. It goes without saying that these impulses can find

realization only in concrete functional expression. We must say

something to be able to say it in a certain manner.

Let us now take up a little more systematically, however briefly, the

various grammatical processes that linguistic research has established.

They may be grouped into six main types: word order; composition;

affixation, including the use of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes;

internal modification of the radical or grammatical element, whether

this affects a vowel or a consonant; reduplication; and accentual

differences, whether dynamic (stress) or tonal (pitch). There are also

special quantitative processes, like vocalic lengthening or shortening

and consonantal doubling, but these may be looked upon as particular

sub-types of the process of internal modification. Possibly still other

formal types exist, but they are not likely to be of importance in a

general survey. It is important to bear in mind that a linguistic

phenomenon cannot be looked upon as illustrating a definite "process"

unless it has an inherent functional value. The consonantal change in

English, for instance, of _book-s_ and _bag-s_ (_s_ in the former, _z_

in the latter) is of no functional significance. It is a purely

external, mechanical change induced by the presence of a preceding

voiceless consonant, _k_, in the former case, of a voiced consonant,

_g_, in the latter. This mechanical alternation is objectively the same

as that between the noun _house_ and the verb _to house_. In the latter

case, however, it has an important grammatical function, that of

transforming a noun into a verb. The two alternations belong, then, to

entirely different psychological categories. Only the latter is a true

illustration of consonantal modification as a grammatical process.

The simplest, at least the most economical, method of conveying some

sort of grammatical notion is to juxtapose two or more words in a

definite sequence without making any attempt by inherent modification of

these words to establish a connection between them. Let us put down two

simple English words at random, say _sing praise_. This conveys no

finished thought in English, nor does it clearly establish a relation

between the idea of singing and that of praising. Nevertheless, it is

psychologically impossible to hear or see the two words juxtaposed

without straining to give them some measure of coherent significance.

The attempt is not likely to yield an entirely satisfactory result, but

what is significant is that as soon as two or more radical concepts are

put before the human mind in immediate sequence it strives to bind them

together with connecting values of some sort. In the case of _sing

praise_ different individuals are likely to arrive at different

provisional results. Some of the latent possibilities of the

juxtaposition, expressed in currently satisfying form, are: _sing praise

(to him)!_ or _singing praise, praise expressed in a song_ or _to sing

and praise_ or _one who sings a song of praise_ (compare such English

compounds as _killjoy_, i.e., _one who kills joy_) or _he sings a song

of praise (to him)_. The theoretical possibilities in the way of

rounding out these two concepts into a significant group of concepts or

even into a finished thought are indefinitely numerous. None of them

will quite work in English, but there are numerous languages where one

or other of these amplifying processes is habitual. It depends entirely

on the genius of the particular language what function is inherently

involved in a given sequence of words.

Some languages, like Latin, express practically all relations by means

of modifications within the body of the word itself. In these, sequence

is apt to be a rhetorical rather than a strictly grammatical principle.

Whether I say in Latin _hominem femina videt_ or _femina hominem videt_

or _hominem videt femina_ or _videt femina hominem_ makes little or no

difference beyond, possibly, a rhetorical or stylistic one. _The woman

sees the man_ is the identical significance of each of these sentences.

In Chinook, an Indian language of the Columbia River, one can be equally

free, for the relation between the verb and the two nouns is as

inherently fixed as in Latin. The difference between the two languages

is that, while Latin allows the nouns to establish their relation to

each other and to the verb, Chinook lays the formal burden entirely on

the verb, the full content of which is more or less adequately rendered

by _she-him-sees_. Eliminate the Latin case suffixes (_-a_ and _-em_)

and the Chinook pronominal prefixes (_she-him-_) and we cannot afford to

be so indifferent to our word order. We need to husband our resources.

In other words, word order takes on a real functional value. Latin and

Chinook are at one extreme. Such languages as Chinese, Siamese, and

Annamite, in which each and every word, if it is to function properly,

falls into its assigned place, are at the other extreme. But the

majority of languages fall between these two extremes. In English, for

instance, it may make little grammatical difference whether I say

_yesterday the man saw the dog_ or _the man saw the dog yesterday_, but

it is not a matter of indifference whether I say _yesterday the man saw

the dog_ or _yesterday the dog saw the man_ or whether I say _he is

here_ or _is he here?_ In the one case, of the latter group of examples,

the vital distinction of subject and object depends entirely on the

placing of certain words of the sentence, in the latter a slight

difference of sequence makes all the difference between statement and

question. It goes without saying that in these cases the English

principle of word order is as potent a means of expression as is the

Latin use of case suffixes or of an interrogative particle. There is

here no question of functional poverty, but of formal economy.

We have already seen something of the process of composition, the

uniting into a single word of two or more radical elements.

Psychologically this process is closely allied to that of word order in

so far as the relation between the elements is implied, not explicitly

stated. It differs from the mere juxtaposition of words in the sentence