INFLECTION AND DERIVATION. 399 



morphology, or, at least, in their syntax. Changes in language through his- 

 toric development would then be excluded; there would be no distinction 

 lietween languages poor and rich in affixes, or between the various kinds 

 of verbs which now differ so much morphologically. 



In language as a product of nature, we can distinguish the effects of 

 physical (phonetic) laws and of psj^chological principles; what is created 

 or formed by these is finally subjected to rational logic, or the principles 

 of reasoning, by which grammatic categories are established. The degree 

 in which human intellect succeeds in molding the sound-groups, words, 

 or conventional signs of language to suit requirements, differs with every 

 people inhabiting the globe, and also with every successive period of the 

 development of its language. Thus we have, outside of the logical or rea- 

 soning principle, other principles in language, all of which we may compre- 

 hend underthe name conventional. 



The logical principles at work in forming languages are clearly put in 

 evidence in the various degrees in which we see the various parts of speech 

 differentiated among themselves. The more precisely the subject is made 

 distinct from the predicate or from the attribute morphologically, the better 

 we can at once recognize each of them, and also the object, by the gram- 

 matic form or position in the sentence. The most highly organized of all, 

 the Aryan family of languages, clearly distinguishes not only the verb 

 from the noun and the substantive from the adjective, but also the different 

 uses of the noun by suffixes indicating number and case. In the inflection 

 of its words, affixes of a relational import are prevailingly employed, while 

 the agglutinative languages use both, relational and material, almost indi.s- 

 criminately, and by many of them the inflections are overloaded with addi- 

 tions of a concrete, material nature, which by other languages are relegated 

 to separate parts of speech. Exactly the same may be said of the mode of 

 deriving words from other words; in some languages this mode is a simple 

 and sober one, in others it is cumulative, holophrastic, and so polysynthetic 

 as to obscure the sense. 



In the following pages I intend to show the method which the Klamath 

 language of Oregon has followed in its morphologic aspects As to gram- 

 matic terminology, many new terms had to be invented to do justice to the 



