588 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



numbers 70, 80, and 90, respectively, by terms meaning 60-10, 4 

 twenties, and 4 twenties 10; these numerals, to which there is no 

 analog}' in Latin, have been plausibly explained as survivals of a 

 vigesimal method of counting — that is, countuig by twenties — the num- 

 bers above 20, a method that would seem to have been borrowed from 

 Gallic, a Celtic language, and which still survives in Gaelic and other 

 modern Celtic languages. This example is the more striking as the 

 actual lexical influence which Celtic has exerted upon French is 

 surprismgly small. So much for the influence of borrowing on the 

 history of a language. 



We may turn now to take up the matter of the varieties of human 

 speech. One method of classifying the languages of the world has been 

 akeady referred to; it may be termed the genetic method, inasmuch 

 as it employs as its criterion of classification the demonstrable relation 

 of certain languages as divergent forms of some older form of speech. 

 As we have aheady seen, the linguistic stocks which we thus get as our 

 largest units of speech are too numerous to serve as the simplest pos- 

 sible reduction of the linguistic material to be classified. One natu- 

 rally turns, therefore, to a psychological classification, one in which the 

 classificatory criterion is the fundamental morphological type to which 

 a particular language or stock is to be assigned. Such a classification 

 of morphological types may proceed from diflerent points of view, 

 varying emphasis being laid on this or that feature of morphology. 

 It is clear at the outset that we have to distinguish between what we 

 may call the subject matter or content of morphology and the mere 

 form pure and simple. Any grammatical system gives formal expres- 

 sion to certain modes or categories of thought, but the manner of 

 expression of these categories or the formal method employed may 

 vary greatly both for difterent categories and for different languages. 

 Not infrequently the same logical category may be expressed by 

 different formal methods in the same language. Thus, in English the 

 negative idea is expressed by means of three distinct formal methods, 

 exemplified by untrutliful, with its use of a prefix un-, which can not 

 occur as a freely movable word; hopeless, with its use of a suffix -less, 

 which again can not occur as a freely movable word; and not good, in 

 which the negative idea is expressed by an element (not) that has enough 

 mobility to justify its bemg considered an independent word. We 

 have here, then, three formal processes illustrated to wliich may be 

 assigned the terms prefixing, sufiixmg, and juxtaposing in definite 

 order. Wilde the same logical category may be grammatically 

 expressed by different formal methods, it is even more evident that 

 the same general formal method may be utilized for many different 

 categories of thought. Thus, in English the words hoolts and worked 

 use the same method of suffixing grammatical elements, the one to 

 express the concept of pluraUty, the other that of past activity. The 



