SECTION 27. APPLICATION. 387 







3. For the reasons already enumerated in 1, accentuation of 

 syllables would be preserved and regularised. Perhaps every 

 second, fourth, etc., syllable would be accentuated. Perchance 

 on the same account accents might be subdivided into weak and 

 strong ones, the strong syllable falling invariably on the second 

 syllable, the weaker on the fourth, etc. Furthermore, accentua- 

 tion, as in English, would be extended to the words composing 

 a sentence, e.g., in "a very large house" the word accent 

 steadily rises, enabling the comparatively greater emphasis to 

 be placed on the comparatively more important word in a 

 sentence, and rendering the language both less monotonous 

 and more intellectual. Lastly, accentuation for the sake of 

 particular emphasis, would be permissible, as in "that man!" 



Thus far we might be said to have concerned ourselves with 

 the esthetic and with the crudely elementary aspects of the 

 problem, for the fundamental question in respect of a language 

 which professes to be constructed on a scientific basis is (a) how 

 the words can be shaped so as to possess a rigidly fixed meaning, 

 and (b) how we can arrange that that meaning shall reflect 

 scientific facts and the scientific spirit. Unless we are tolerably 

 successful in this phase of our enterprise, we may be said to 

 have broadly failed. At present, so far as the signification of 

 the constituents of a term are concerned, cat might mean, for 

 instance, dog or mountain, and therefore the term cat provides 

 us with no inner clue to its connotation. Here, then, our radi- 

 cal reform must have its starting point. Every letter, like every 

 cardinal number in arithmetic, should have a definite meaning 1 

 and one exhibiting a scientific character. In this matter the 

 signification of a word would consist of the sum of significations 

 of the separate letters arranged in a certain order. The unit 

 of significant language, that is, would be the letter and not 

 the word. 



In consonance with this principle the scientific alphabet might 

 be assumed to be constructed of numbers having cardinal and 

 ordinal implications, and thus satisfy mathematical requirements. 

 The ten short vowels, in their proper phonetic order, would 

 represent, or rather be, the figures 1 to 0, and for convenience, 

 the corresponding long vowels would stand for 11 to 20. (In 

 the spoken language, when used for arithmetical purposes, the 

 decimal units above the first hundred, thousand, etc. would 

 be each represented by a consonant in a series corresponding 

 to the vowels, pronounced with the corresponding vowel which 



1 In this connection note the tacitly recognised common meaning under- 

 lying so many words beginning with gl, most of them suggestive of light: 

 glabrate, glacial, glacis, glad, glade, gladiator, gladiolus, glair, glaive, glamour, 

 glance, gland, glanders, glare, glass, glaze, gleam, glean, glebe, glee, glen, 

 glibe, glide, glim, glimmer, glimpse, glint, glissade, glisten, glitter, gloaming, 

 gloat, globe, glomerate, gloom, glory, gloss, glottis, glove, glow, gloze, glu- 

 cose, glue, glum, glut, gluten, glycerin, glyptic. (See, however, 4.) 



25* 



