434 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



feature. Nothing is more common in conversational speech of alS 

 races, high or low, than this emphatic repetition of words and phrases 

 Yes, Yes, has more force than a simple affirmative. No, No, does 

 not conform to the rule that two negatives make an affirmative. Far^ 

 far away means more than far away. Note that the iteration may be 

 confined to a part of the word as in many intensive forms such as 

 B-a/i^o/i'w, or in the very common childish habit of lengthening a 

 vowel sound — a habit which is an exceedingly common one with 

 adults as well as children in our Colony — a bi-i-ig man being a 

 much taller personage than merely a big man. We see the same 

 kind of iteration for the sake of emphasis continually in public speak- 

 ing, sometimes prefaced with : " I repeat, gentlemen," frequently done 

 without preface and unconsciously. 



5. Our next division we shall call Grammatical Iteration. It 

 covers a very wide field of language phenomena, and may be regarded 

 simply as the application of emphasis to various linguistic purposes,, 

 the result often being that the iteration becomes quite veiled by 

 phonetic change until it requires investigation before it can be re- 

 cognised. If we asked a priori to what purposes iteration would 

 naturally be put, as language developed, it would not require much 

 thought to select such grammatical phenomena as the comparison of 

 adjectives and the formation of plural forms in nouns as being obvious 

 spheres in which Iteration might play a part, and the histor}' of 

 language W'ould confirm this selection. But the use of iteration goes 

 far beyond this, and we find it used for nearly all the purposes which 

 we class under the head of grammar. Languages in their uncon- 

 scious growth do not respect logical principles as Volapuk may do, 

 and a device which has been employed in one connection is not 

 ear-marked and set aside for that purpose, but is widened in its appli- 

 cations to embrace many other purposes by that curious gradual 

 process of metaphor and analogy which is characteristic of all 

 linguistic growth. Let us briefly note some of the uses in grammar 

 in which Iteration is obviously employed. 



(a) The Comparison of Adjectives and Adverbs. — In expressions 

 like far, far away, a long, long time, we have the beginnings of the 

 usage, and in many uncivilised languages this is a regular grammatical 

 usage — e.g., in Accadian Gal-Gal — very great. 



{b) The Plural of Nouns. — Man -f man may easily connote the 

 plural idea, and we find this device frequently used in languages of 

 the less civilised types, e-g-, the plural tu-tu in the Bushman dialect 

 — houses. The iteration may be only partial as in the Tepeguana 

 instances quoted by Sayce, ali — child, a-aJi — children, ogga — father, 

 o-ogga — fathers, etc. Perhaps we may see in the common nursery 

 expressions " to play at house-house, at shop-shop." the same 

 phenomenon. 



Whether in any of the suffixes employed in most languages for 

 the purpose of expressing the plural there lies hidden the residue of 

 primeval iteration is a problem which admits of nO' solution. 



{c) Verb forms expressing continuous, repeated, or intensified 

 action. — Such synthetic forms have been mostly superseded in 



