On the Evolution of Language | Page 8

be used as the predicant; and what is usually called the common form of the active voice is coming more and more to be limited in its use to special significations.
The real active voice, indicative mode, present tense, first person, singular number, of the verb to eat, is am eating. The expression I eat, signifies I am accustomed to eat. So, if we consider the common form of the active voice throughout its entire conjugation, we discover that many of its forms are limited to special uses.
Throughout the conjugation of the verb the auxiliaries are predicants, but these auxiliaries, to the extent that they are modified for mode, tense, number, and person, contain adverbial and connective elements.
In like manner many of the lexical elements of the English language contain more than one part of speech: To ascend is to go up; to descend is to go down; and to depart is to go from.
Thus it is seen that the English language is also synthetic in that its parts of speech are not completely differentiated. The English, then, differs in this respect from an Indian language only in degree.
In most Indian tongues no pure predicant has been differentiated, but in some the verb to be, or predicant, has been slightly developed, chiefly to affirm, existence in a place.
It will thus be seen that by the criterion of organization Indian tongues are of very low grade.
It need but to be affirmed that by the criterion of sematologic content Indian languages are of a very low grade. Therefore the frequently-expressed opinion that the languages of barbaric peoples have a more highly organized grammatic structure than the languages of civilized peoples has its complete refutation.
It is worthy of remark that all paradigmatic inflection in a civilized tongue is a relic of its barbaric condition. When the parts of speech are fully differentiated and the process of placement fully specialized, so that the order of words in sentences has its full significance, no useful purpose is subserved by inflection.
Economy in speech is the force by which its development has been accomplished, and it divides itself properly into economy of utterance and economy of thought. Economy of utterance has had to do with the phonic constitution of words; economy of thought has developed the sentence.
All paradigmatic inflection requires unnecessary thought. In the clause if he was here, if fully expresses the subjunctive condition, and it is quite unnecessary to express it a second time by using another form of the verb to be. And so the people who are using the English language are deciding, for the subjunctive form is rapidly becoming obsolete with the long list of paradigmatic forms which have disappeared.
Every time the pronoun he, she, or it is used it is necessary to think of the sex of its antecedent, though in its use there is no reason why sex should be expressed, say, one time in ten thousand. If one pronoun non-expressive of gender were used instead of the three, with three gender adjectives, then in nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine cases the speaker would be relieved of the necessity of an unnecessary thought, and in the one case an adjective would fully express it. But when these inflections are greatly multiplied, as they are in the Indian languages, alike with the Greek and Latin, the speaker is compelled in the choice of a word to express his idea to think of a multiplicity of things which have no connection with that which he wishes to express.
A Ponka Indian, in saying that a man killed a rabbit, would have to say the man, he, one, animate, standing, in the nominative case, purposely killed, by shooting an arrow, the rabbit, he, the one, animate, sitting, in the objective case; for the form of a verb to kill would have to be selected, and the verb changes its form by inflection and incorporated particles to denote person, number, and gender as animate or inanimate, and gender as standing, sitting, or lying, and case; and the form of the verb would also express whether the killing was done accidentally or purposely, and whether it was by shooting or by some other process, and, if by shooting, whether by bow and arrow, or with a gun; and the form of the verb would in like manner have to express all of these things relating to the object; that is, the person, number, gender, and case of the object; and from the multiplicity of paradigmatic forms of the verb to kill this particular one would have to be selected. Perhaps one time in a million it would be the purpose to express all of these particulars, and in that case the Indian would have the whole expression in one compact word, but in the nine hundred