262 ON THE ROOTS IN THE MALAY LANGUAGE. 
Even previous to making the above enquiries we should pro- 
eed to give a more ample description, entering into the details 
of the antithesis existing between these two great divisions of 
words. Arbitrary tone-words are, it is quite evident, diame- 
trically opposed to the involuntary, verbal representations of 
sounds, therefore, when we include the tone-imitative words in 
the latter class we do so for the express purpose of contrasting 
them with the arbitrary tone-words, and to show that we look 
upon them in the light of words with a reflective tendency, not 
only answering to the sounds themselves but to something more 
besides, for they recall the very motions and gestures necess- 
ary for ‘the accomplishment of the action itself, between which 
and the sound consequently ensuing there is an intimate re- 
lationship: at the period when speech had not reached such a 
high state of perfection as at present, the language of mimicry 
and gesticulation must certainly have been of great importance, 
and that it has not yet taken its final leave of the world we 
learn from the interesting article by Professor Gurianp of 
Strasburg published in the Deutsche Rundschau for May last 
(1883), and treating on the language of sigus employed by the 
Indians. In the infant stages of our race, speech was full of 
motion, the movements of mimicry going hand in hand with the 
utterance of involuntary expressions for original tones. This is 
the reason why pronominal roots and radical prepositions have 
as much right to be considered involuntary, verbal sounds as 
the tone-imitative words. It is clear that in this instance psy- 
chology and grammar do not fulfil precisely the same office. 
The psyche supplied the material out of which the language 
was constructed by the nous not in conformity with any 
logical rules but, starting with the roots of nouns, verbs, pro- 
nouns, and prepositions, it developed the language while per 
fecting itself. 
Then, too, we should not be able to avoid a careful inves- 
tigation of the fundamental meanings belonging to the nume- 
rous affixes with which the Malay abounds for, so far, we have 
only gone into ké and /é, and our discourse on these two pre- 
fixes has not been by any means complete. 
Evidently there is ample material for a prolonged enquiry on 
untrodden ground. 
