246 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN, 



of much assistance for such purposes from demonstrative 

 elements, or modifying constants. Languages of this kind 

 are often called Monosyllabic, from the fact that the isolated 

 words usually occur in the form of single syllables. They 

 have also been called Radical, from the resemblance which their 

 monosyllabic and isolated words present to the primitive 

 roots of languages of other types — roots which, as already 

 indicated, have been unearthed by the labours of the com- 

 parative philologist. Thus, upon the whole, the best idea of an 

 isolating language may be gained by comparing it with the 

 " nursery-language " of our own children, who naturally 

 express themselves, when first beginning to speak, by using 

 monosyllabic and isolated words, which further resemble the 

 languages in question by not clearly distinguishing between 

 what we understand as " parts of speech." For in isolating 

 tongues such variations of grammatical meaning as the words 

 are capable of conveying are mainly produced, either by 

 differences of intonation, or by changing the positions which 

 words occupy in a sentence. Of course these expedients 

 obtain more or less in languages of both the other types ; but 

 in the isolating group they have been wrought up into a much 

 greater variety and nicety of usage, so as to become fairly 

 good substitutes for modifying constants on the one hand, 

 and inflectional change on the other. Nevertheless, although 

 inflectional change is wholly absent, modifying constants in 

 the form of auxiliary words are not so. In Chinese, for 

 example, there are what the native grammarians call "full 

 wo'-Hs," and "empty words." The full words are the mono- 

 syllabic terms, which, when standing by themselves, present 

 meanings of such vague generality as to include, for instance, 

 a ball, round, to 7nake round, in a circle : that is to say, the 

 full words when standing alone do not belong to any one 

 part of speech more than to another. Moreover, one such 

 word may present many totally different meanings, such as to 

 be, truly, he, the letter, thus. In order, therefore, to notify the 

 particular meaning which a full word is intended to convey, 

 the empty words are used as aids supplementary to the 



