O’Shea—The Child’s Linguistic Development. 191 
* 
gently at any rate, until the child’s thought had attained a con¬ 
siderable degree of complexity, so that he might feel the need of 
some particularization in his expression. Of course, the child’s 
appreciation of particular properties of objects is implicit in his 
reactions upon them,—in his attitude toward his kitten for in¬ 
stance,—long before he employs qualifying terms. He shows 
that he regards his kitten as 44 nice,” for illustration; but still the 
notion of niceness as a general attribute is not dissected out, so 
to speak, from the mass of impressions in which it is imbedded. 
Then the right use of a modifying term requires the generaliza¬ 
tion of numerous experiences, ail of the same general effect. So 
two processes must go on pari passu in order that the child 
should feel the need of verbal instruments to function as modi¬ 
fiers. In the first place, there must take place continual differ¬ 
entiation in the body of general impressions which together con¬ 
stitute any particular object; and in the second place, there must 
be constant generalizing of similar experiences with objects, giv¬ 
ing certain types of experience which are designated by modifiers 
and attached to objects according to the type of experience which 
they yield. Of course, qualifying and particularizing terms 
may very early be used which have the outward aspect of modifi¬ 
ers, but inwardly they do not function as such. They are the 
resultants of mere mechanical imitation. Take, for example, H. 
who at two and one-half years would say, when running to greet 
her father returning to the house, ‘ ; nice papa.” She had been 
taught this formula, and it probably was the expression of no 
different mental content from when she said simply 4 4 papa. ’ ’ So 
she would ask for a “nice story;” but what she wanted w*as a 
story, not some special kind of a story,—a nice as distinguished 
from some other sort of a story that she had heard. She did not 
employ nice as a particularizing term. Again, I say in the pres¬ 
ence of S. at nineteen months, 44 nice mamma,” at the same time 
patting her head. He imitates my action and words, but mani¬ 
festly he uses both words as a single term. Possibly the patting 
suggests to him some of the mother’s special qualities denoted by 
nice, but even so his conception must be extremely dim and unde¬ 
fined. Now, if a friend should happen in while he was caressing 
his mother and using his new* term, it would be thought that he 
