186 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
which he can and does distinguish from all other attitudes or 
aspects. 
Then again, such an expression as 4 ‘birdie fly” in the child’s 
speech may be regarded as a single term describing a bird in 
certain attitudes. The child is not aware that he is using the sub¬ 
stantive and a predicate; he imitates as a unity 1 an expression 
for a general situation, which expression in adult speech denotes 
differentiation into object and action. The only way we can tell 
for sure when substantive and predicate have become differen¬ 
tiated in the child’s speech is when he uses them appropriately 
in situations where he could not have imitated them just as he 
employs them; as when, dropping some bits of paper over the 
hot-air register he sees them sail upward and exclaims, “paper 
fly.” Here action is apprehended apart from the special thing 
with which it was originally connected, and a beginning is made 
in regarding it as a characteristic that may be possessed by many 
different things. In due course “flying” or “to fly” will de¬ 
note a certain kind of thing conceived of as having existence 
more or less apart from objects as such. The same may be said 
of “running,” “jumping,” “shouting” and so on ad libitum. 
It should be added that only very slowly and as a result of a 
great variety of significant experiences does the conception of 
action as such become differentiated from the conception of 
things as such; and the differentiation always comes about 
through a series of objects performing in the same general sort 
of way as, for instance, boys, dogs, horses, etc., running. This. 
‘ ‘ general sort of way ” is of course always very close in conscious¬ 
ness to objects; but yet, and especially when a particular verbal 
symbol is used to designate it, it may be felt as having a certain 
degree of individual existence. Doubtless, though, persons dif¬ 
fer greatly in respect of the extent to which action and quality 
become dissevered, as it were, from things, and attain to a meas¬ 
ure of independence in the mental processes. It may be added 
that there can never be complete severance of relationships and 
iPreyer observed his son Axel at twenty-seven months saying mage- 
nicht (mag es nicht ) and tannenicht (kann es nicht). Any observer 
may notice the same phenomenon and often quite late in linguistic de¬ 
velopment, after the child has been in school for several years. 
