Iteration in Language. 431 



gradually being employed as a device in language which may be put 

 to the most diverse uses which the more complex needs of growing 

 intelligence suggest. What lies at the bottom of the impulse to 

 iteration may be somewhat uncertain, but we cannot be far wrong in 

 assuming that there is something pleasurable in the mere repetition 

 along the same line of a current of nerve impulse, and that up to a 

 certain extent the doing of a thing once or the uttering of a thing 

 once tends to produce a repetition of the action or the utterance. 

 We see this clearly enough when the repetition has proceeded far 

 enough to •produce a habit of action or speech, and the greater in- 

 cludes the less, so that we must conclude that each individual action 

 or utterance has a tendency tO' repeat itself. 



The relations of Speech to what may be called in the widest 

 sense Music have never been fully investigated, and the subject, 

 dealing as it does with the very roots of sensation and thought, is a 

 very difficult one, but we may see a parallel between speech and 

 music in their respective developments which bear upon the question 

 of Iteration. Savage music is chiefly Iteration- — the drum is the 

 favourite instrument — and as men advance in intellect so their music 

 advances in variety, and Iteration becomes less marked. But as in 

 all language, however highly developed. Iteration is still a perceptible 

 factor, so in all music, however complex. Iteration has its distinctive 

 place. Let us now see how Iteration appears in the actual 

 phenomena of language. 



I. We have Iteration in its most obvious form where whole 

 sentences, phrases, or words are repeated. As we shall see pre^ 

 sently, this form of Iteration is most commonly found in the mouths 

 of children, or of races intellectually childish ; but we should not lose 

 sight of the fact that the child in this respect is father to the man, 

 and that the tendency is seen at all ages of life, and in the 

 cultured as well as in the uncultured. We need only point to the 

 phenomena of catch phrases, vulgar street cries, to show how strong 

 the tendency is in the less cultured ; but we must also note that even 

 in the most intellectual there is a tendency to adopt and to use con- 

 tinually certain favourite phrases or turns of speech which become 

 more or less an individual note of personality. Note, toO', the ten- 

 dency in public speakers tO' repeat a phrase or sentence. Probably 

 there are few of my hearers who could not name some acquaintance 

 who has the Iterative habit either in sentence, phrase, or word. 



II. A second form of Iteration, which is alsO' very widespread in 

 Language, occurs when the monotony of simple repetition is crossed, 

 and the effect made perhaps thereby more pleasant by a little variety. 

 To apply the analogy we have drawn between music and language, 

 the monotony of the drum is relieved by the addition of the fife. It 

 is worth while under this second head to subdivide the various forms 

 of variety, as they have in many cases important effects in the general 

 structure of languages. 



I. We may note the common phenomenon of general Iteration 

 combined with simple vowel change. Such combinations as jingle- 

 jangle, ding-dong, would be familiar illustrations of a phenomenon 



