Vowel (_-mü_, animate plural). Such features as accent, cadence, and the

treatment of consonants and vowels within the body of a word are often

useful as aids in the external demarcation of the word, but they must by

no means be interpreted, as is sometimes done, as themselves responsible

for its psychological existence. They at best but strengthen a feeling

of unity that is already present on other grounds.

We have already seen that the major functional unit of speech, the

sentence, has, like the word, a psychological as well as a merely

logical or abstracted existence. Its definition is not difficult. It is

the linguistic expression of a proposition. It combines a subject of

discourse with a statement in regard to this subject. Subject and

"predicate" may be combined in a single word, as in Latin _dico_; each

may be expressed independently, as in the English equivalent, _I say_;

each or either may be so qualified as to lead to complex propositions of

many sorts. No matter how many of these qualifying elements (words or

functional parts of words) are introduced, the sentence does not lose

Its feeling of unity so long as each and every one of them falls in

place as contributory to the definition of either the subject of

discourse or the core of the predicate[7]. Such a sentence as _The mayor

of New York is going to deliver a speech of welcome in French_ is

readily felt as a unified statement, incapable of reduction by the

transfer of certain of its elements, in their given form, to the

preceding or following sentences. The contributory ideas of _of New

York_, _of welcome_, and _in French_ may be eliminated without hurting

the idiomatic flow of the sentence. _The mayor is going to deliver a

speech_ is a perfectly intelligible proposition. But further than this

we cannot go in the process of reduction. We cannot say, for instance,

_Mayor is going to deliver_.[8] The reduced sentence resolves itself

Into the subject of discourse--_the mayor_--and the predicate--_is going

to deliver a speech_. It is customary to say that the true subject of

such a sentence is _mayor_, the true predicate _is going_ or even _is_,

the other elements being strictly subordinate. Such an analysis,

however, is purely schematic and is without psychological value. It is

much better frankly to recognize the fact that either or both of the two

terms of the sentence-proposition may be incapable of expression in the

form of single words. There are languages that can convey all that is

conveyed by _The-mayor is-going-to-deliver-a-speech_ in two words, a

subject word and a predicate word, but English is not so highly

synthetic. The point that we are really making here is that underlying

the finished sentence is a living sentence type, of fixed formal

characteristics. These fixed types or actual sentence-groundworks may be

freely overlaid by such additional matter as the speaker or writer cares

to put on, but they are themselves as rigidly "given" by tradition as

are the radical and grammatical elements abstracted from the finished

word. New words may be consciously created from these fundamental

elements on the analogy of old ones, but hardly new types of words. In

the same way new sentences are being constantly created, but always on

strictly traditional lines. The enlarged sentence, however, allows as a

rule of considerable freedom in the handling of what may be called

"unessential" parts. It is this margin of freedom which gives us the

opportunity of individual style.

[Footnote 7: "Coordinate sentences" like _I shall remain but you may go_

may only doubtfully be considered as truly unified predications, as true

sentences. They are sentences in a stylistic sense rather than from the

strictly formal linguistic standpoint. The orthography _I shall remain.

But you may go_ is as intrinsically justified as _I shall remain. Now

you may go_. The closer connection in sentiment between the first two

propositions has led to a conventional visual representation that must

not deceive the analytic spirit.]

[Footnote 8: Except, possibly, in a newspaper headline. Such headlines,

however, are language only in a derived sense.]

The habitual association of radical elements, grammatical elements,

words, and sentences with concepts or groups of concepts related into

wholes is the fact itself of language. It is important to note that

there is in all languages a certain randomness of association. Thus, the

idea of "hide" may be also expressed by the word "conceal," the notion

of "three times" also by "thrice." The multiple expression of a single

concept is universally felt as a source of linguistic strength and

variety, not as a needless extravagance. More irksome is a random

correspondence between idea and linguistic expression in the field of

abstract and relational concepts, particularly when the concept is

embodied in a grammatical element. Thus, the randomness of the

expression of plurality in such words as _books_, _oxen_, _sheep_, and

_geese_ is felt to be rather more, I fancy, an unavoidable and

traditional predicament than a welcome luxuriance. It is obvious that a

language cannot go beyond a certain point in this randomness. Many

languages go incredibly far in this respect, it is true, but linguistic

history shows conclusively that sooner or later the less frequently

occurring associations are ironed out at the expense of the more vital

ones. In other words, all languages have an inherent tendency to economy

of expression. Were this tendency entirely inoperative, there would be

no grammar. The fact of grammar, a universal trait of language, is

simply a generalized expression of the feeling that analogous concepts

and relations are most conveniently symbolized in analogous forms. Were

a language ever completely "grammatical," it would be a perfect engine

of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is

tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.

Up to the present we have been assuming that the material of language

reflects merely the world of concepts and, on what I have ventured to

call the "pre-rational" plane, of images, which are the raw material of

concepts. We have, in other words, been assuming that language moves

entirely in the ideational or cognitive sphere. It is time that we

amplified the picture. The volitional aspect of consciousness also is to

some extent explicitly provided for in language. Nearly all languages

have special means for the expression of commands (in the imperative

forms of the verb, for example) and of desires, unattained or

unattainable (_Would he might come!_ or _Would he were here!_) The

emotions, on the whole, seem to be given a less adequate outlet.

Emotion, indeed, is proverbially inclined to speechlessness. Most, if

not all, the interjections are to be put to the credit of emotional

expression, also, it may be, a number of linguistic elements expressing

certain modalities, such as dubitative or potential forms, which may be

interpreted as reflecting the emotional states of hesitation or

doubt--attenuated fear. On the whole, it must be admitted that ideation

reigns supreme in language, that volition and emotion come in as

distinctly secondary factors. This, after all, is perfectly

intelligible. The world of image and concept, the endless and

ever-shifting picture of objective reality, is the unavoidable

subject-matter of human communication, for it is only, or mainly, in

terms of this world that effective action is possible. Desire, purpose,

emotion are the personal color of the objective world; they are applied

privately by the individual soul and are of relatively little importance

to the neighboring one. All this does not mean that volition and emotion

are not expressed. They are, strictly speaking, never absent from normal

speech, but their expression is not of a truly linguistic nature. The

nuances of emphasis, tone, and phrasing, the varying speed and

continuity of utterance, the accompanying bodily movements, all these

express something of the inner life of impulse and feeling, but as these

means of expression are, at last analysis, but modified forms of the