93 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. XIV. 



THE THEORY AND STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 



Next to each thought associate sound accords, 



And forms the dulcet symphony of words. CANTO III. 1. 365. 



IDEAS consist of synchi - onous motions or configurations of the 

 extremities of the organs of sense; these when repeated by sensation, 

 volition, or association, are either simple or complex, as they were 

 first excited by irritation; or have afterwards some parts abstracted 

 from them, or some parts added to them. Language consists of 

 words, which are the names or symbols of ideas. Words are there- 

 fore properly all of them nouns or names of things. 



Little had been done in the investigation of the theory of language 

 from the time of Aristotle to the present asra, till Mr. Home Tooke, 

 the ingenious and learned author of the Diversions of Purley, ex- 

 plained those undeclined words of all languages, which had puzzled 

 the grammarians, and evinced from their etymology, that they were 

 abbreviations of other modes of expression. Mr. Tooke observes, 

 that the first aim of language was to communicate our thoughts, and 

 the second to do it with dispatch; and hence he divides words into 

 those, which were necessary to express our thoughts, and those which 

 are abbreviations of the former; which he ingeniously styles the 

 wings of Hermes. 



For the greater dispatch of conversation many words suggest more 

 than one idea; I shall therefore arrange them according to the num- 

 ber and kinds of ideas, which they suggest; and am induced to do 

 this, as a new distribution of the objects of any science may advance 

 the knowledge of it by developing another analogy of its constituent 

 parts. And in thus endeavouring to analyze the theory of language 

 I mean to speak primarily of the English, and occasionally to add 

 what may occur concerning the structure of the Greek and Latin. 



