436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



form, that is, for the length of the sound-names and the number 

 of principal sound-elements, together with the distribution of 

 voice-stress or accent. Little heed is paid at first to the articulate 

 quality of the sounds. Thus certain sounds, as the labials, are 

 used as drudges and made to stand for a great diversity of sound. 

 Sometimes a guttural sound, as h, is put to a like general vicarious 

 service. 



How much more important is the general form of the sound-' 

 name than the particular order of sounds is seen in the fact that 

 after articulation has become differentiated and the several sounds 

 are repeated with an approach to accuracy, the order is frequently 

 altered. An early example of such transposition noted in the 

 case of one child was the use of " hoogshur " for sugar. 



One very interesting feature in these transformations is the 

 strong tendency to reduplication. We notice the tendency to 

 repeat sounds in the first " la-la " stage of articulation, and a like 

 tendency shows itself in the later linguistic stage. Monosyllables 

 are frequently doubled, as in the familiar "gee-gee," "ba-ba," 

 "ni-ni" (nice thing). Some children frequently turn monosylla- 

 bles into reduplications, making book " boom-boom," and so forth. 

 It is, however, in attempting dissyllables that the reduplication is 

 most common. Thus naughty becomes " na-na " ; faster, " fa- fa " ; 

 Julia, "dum-dum," and so forth, where, the repeated syllable 

 serves to retain something of the original word-form. In some 

 cases the second and unaccented syllable is selected for redu- 

 plication, as in the instance quoted by Perez " peau-peau " for 

 chapeau. 



These early reduplications, which, as is well known, have their 

 parallel in many of the names of the languages of savage tribes,* 

 are sometimes said to be the result of a kind of physiological 

 inertia, the tendency to go on doing what has been begun. But 

 it is probable that the repetition of a sound gives pleasure to the 

 child as a form of sound-harmony or assonance. This supposi- 

 tion is borne out by the fact that the child, in repeating the words 

 uttered by others, frequently assimilates two sounds. Thus he 

 will sometimes alter the first of two sounds so as to assimilate it 

 to the second. In one case thick was pronounced as " kik," and 

 the name Anna received an initial consonant so as to become the 

 reduplication "Na-na." In some cases assonance is secured by 

 altering the final sound. " If " (writes a mother) " a word began 

 with a labial, he generally concluded it with a labial, making 

 bird, for example, *bom.' In certain instances even the vowel 

 sounds will be modified so as to produce a kind of assonance, as 

 when ' bonnie Dundee ' was rendered by ' bun dun.' " 



* See Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 198. 



