POWELL] PHILOLOGY CXLIX 



is very useful to the scholar who is careful in tlie selection of 

 his terms. 



A vocable is a succession of sounds that are emitted in a 

 prescribed order. This constant order by much repetition 

 establishes a habit of emission which integrates the word and 

 distinguishes it from other words. Thus an habitual succes- 

 sion of sounds constitutes a word. In sentences words are 

 used also in succession, but the successions are variable and 

 hence they do not integrate by habitual expression. In sen- 

 tences the variability in the order of expression is an agency 

 by which the sounds are prevented from coalescing; in words 

 the invariability produces coalescence, so that we may define 

 a word as a succession of coalescing sounds. The degree of 

 coalescence is variable, and tlie degree of the separation of 

 words in the emission is variable. Thus words may be of 

 more than one syllable and yet the syllables ma}^ be distinct 

 in a minor degree, while the words of a sentence flow into 

 each other so that one sentence may be distinguished from 

 another, but the separation of words is more distinctly marked 

 than the separation of syllables. 



In the production of words from sounds idiosyncrasies pre- 

 vail which are peculiar to the different languages severally. 

 In one language certain sounds will not coalesce with certain 

 other sounds to the extent necessary to the formation of a 

 word, but one or the other of them will be modified. Facility 

 in the combination of sounds into words is thus variable from 

 language to language. 



GRAMMAR 



Grammar is the science of arranging words in the sentence. 

 Sometimes it is called syntax. Gi-ammar is held to include 

 other of the elements of language, but we have already seen 

 that the elements of language are concomitant, and one can 

 not be considered without implicating the other, and often 

 overt affirmation is necessary. The word and tlie sentence 

 may be identical units; that is, a word may be a whole sen- 

 tence. In some languages most sentences are but single 

 words. In the examination of the many languages spoken by 



