PEINCIPLES OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE. lOi 



distinctions lias disappeared, leaving alinost no trace behind. Natural gender 

 has replaced grammatical, and the pronominal forms he, she, it, 7us, him, her, its, 

 are our only means for its indication. 



These two processes — the production of new forms hy the comLination of 

 old materials, and the wearing down and Avearing out of the forms so produced, 

 are tlie principal means by which the external life and growth of language are 

 kept up, by whose operation spoken tongues are constantly becoming other 

 than they Avere. But they are only auxiliary to a not less striking growth in 

 the interior content of speech, in the meaning of words. It is as important a 

 part of the historical study of a word to trace out its changes of signiiication 

 as its changes of form ; and the former are even richer in curious and unex- 

 pected developments, are fuller of instruction, than the latter. The internal 

 content of language is phistic to the touch of the inspiring mind. But for 

 this, no variability of form or facility of combination could make it aught but a 

 stiif dead structure, incapable of supplying for any time the needs of a think- 

 ing, feeling, observing, and reasoning community. ' Old words are applied to 

 new uses ; the general is individualized, the individual generalized ; the con- 

 crete becomes the abstract ; a pregnant expression, a startling metaphor, is 

 reduced to the level of an ordinary phrase ; delicate shades of meaning are dis- 

 tinguished by the gradual differentiation of sj'uonymous words, and so on. 



The rate at which these processes of change go on is very various. It de- 

 pends, in part, upon subtle and recondite causes, as upon the individual char- 

 acter of different languages and the qualities of the peoples who speak them — 

 qualities, perhaps, wliich exhibit themselves only in this way, and hardly ad- 

 mit of analysis and recognition elsewhere. In part, it depends also upon ex- 

 ternal circumstances, upon change of surroundings and mode of life, of mental 

 and physical activity. An English family, wrecked on a coral island in the 

 south seas, Avould soon find a great part of its vocabulary useless, and in a 

 very few generations its language would have become vastly impoverished. 

 A tribe from such an island, again, if suddenly transferred to the midst of 

 northern variety of clime, product, and occupation, would have to expand 

 I'apidly its store of speech to keep pace with the growing wealth of its expe- 

 riences. As regards grammatical change, all that assists the j)urity of linguistic 

 tradition tends to keep language the same ; so, especially, culture, literature, 

 the habit of instruction. Careful and pervading education reduces to a mini- 

 mum that immense and most important class of changes which begins in popu- 

 lar inaccuracies. On the other hand, the intermixture of races of diverse 

 speech, rendering necessary the elaboration, by mutual compromise, of a new 

 dialect for common use, tends powerfully to the disorganization of grammatical 

 structure. It is such a course which has made of our English the language 

 which, above all others, has yielded up most of the grammatical fabric which 

 was its birthright and inheritance. 



The processes of alteration illustrated in the last lecture are familiarly spoken 

 of as going on in language itself, like fermentation in bread, or deplacement 

 and replacement in animal tissues. But it must not be forgotten that every 

 separate item of change is the work of an individual or individuals. In lan- 

 guage, the ultimate atoms at work are not dead matter, but intelligent beings, 

 acting for a purpose. Each, indeed, acts unpremeditatedlv, and for the most 

 part unconsciously ; each only wants to use the common possession for his own 

 benefit, at his own convenience ; yet each is also an actor in the great work of 

 preserving and of shaping the general speech. Now, the infinite diversity of 

 circumstances and of characters in the speakers of language tends toward infi- 

 nite diversity in their action and its results ; each would, acting independently, 

 impress upon its progress a somewhat different course. Linguistic develop- 



