14 ON THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE. 
To the extent that voice, mode, and tense are accomplished by the 
use of agglutinated particles or inflections, to that extent adverbs and 
verbs are undifferentiated. 
To the extent that adverbs are found as incorporated particles in 
verbs, the two parts of speech are undifferentiated. 
To the extent that prepositions are particles incorporated in the verb, 
prepositions and verbs are undifferentiated. 
To the extent that prepositions are affixed to nouns, prepositions and 
nouns are undifferentiated. 
Tn all these particulars it is seen that the Indian tongues belong to a 
very low type of organization. Various scholars have called attention 
to this feature by describing Indian languages as being holophrastic, 
polysynthetic, or synthetic. The term synthetic is perhaps the best, 
and may be used as synonymous with undifferentiated. 
Indian tongues, therefore, may be said to be highly synthetic in that 
their parts of speech are imperfectly differentiated. 
In these same particulars the English language is highly organized, 
as the parts of speech are highly differentiated. Yet the difference is 
one of degree, not of kind. 
To the extent in the English iSndaues that inflection is used for quali- 
fication, as for person, number, and gender of the noun and pronoun, 
and for mode and tense in the verb, to that extent the parts of speech 
are undifferentiated. But we have seen that inflection is used for this 
purpose to a very slight extent. 
There is yet in the English language one important differentiation 
which has been but partially accomplished. Verbs as usually consid- 
ered are undifferentiated parts of speech; they are nouns and adjectives, 
one or both, and predicants. The predicant simple is a distinct part of 
speech. The English language has but one, the verb to be, and this is 
not always a pure predicant, for it sometimes contains within itself an 
adverbial element when it is conjugated for mode and tense, and a con- 
nective element when it is conjugated for agreement. With adjectives 
and nouns this verb is used as a predicant. In the passive voice also it 
is thus used, and the participles are nouns or adjectives. In what is 
sometimes called the progressive form of the active voice nouns and 
adjectives are differentiated in the participles, and the verb “to be” is 
used as a predicant. But in what is usually denominated the active 
voice of the verb, the English language has undifferentiated parts of 
speech. An examination of the history of the verb to be in the English 
language exhibits the fact that it is coming more and more to be used as 
the predicant; and what is usually called the common form of the active 
voice is coming more and more to be limited in its use to special sig- 
nifications. 
The real active voice, indicative mode, present tense, first person, sin- 
gular number, of the verb to eat, is am eating. The expression I eat, 
signifies I am accustomed to eat. So, if we consider the common form of 
