CHAPTER VII. 



ARTICULATION. 



It will be my aim in this chapter to take a broad view of 

 Articulation as a special development of the general faculty of 

 sign-making, reserving for subsequent chapters a consideration 

 of the philosophy of Speech. 



On the threshold of articulate language, then, we have four 

 several cases to distinguish : first, articulation by way of 

 meaningless imitation ; second, meaningless articulation by 

 way of a spontaneous or instinctive exercise of the organs of 

 speech ; third, understanding of the signification of articulate 

 sounds, or words ; and fourth, articulation with an intentional 

 attribution of the meaning understood as attaching to the 

 words. I shall consider each of these cases separately. 



The meaningless imitation of articulate sounds occurs in 

 talking birds, young .children, not unfrequently in savages, 

 in idiots, and in the mentally deranged. The faculty of such 

 meaningless imitation, however, need not detain us ; for it is 

 evident that the mere re-echoing of a verbal sound is of no 

 further psychological significance than is the mimicking of 

 any other sound. 



Meaningless articulation of a spontaneous or instinctive 

 kind occurs in young children, in uneducated deaf-mutes, and 

 also in idiots.* Infants usually (though not invariably) begin 



♦ For meaningless articulation by idiots, see Scott's Remarks on Education oj 

 Idiots. The fact is alluded to by most writers on idiot psychology, and I have fre- 

 quently observed it myself. But the case of uneducated deaf-mutes is here more 



