O’Shea—The Child’s Linguistic Development. 197 
One cannot easily detect tlie emergence of prepositional ele¬ 
ments in early speech. Their individuality is at first not at all 
marked or distinct. It is as though they were still a part of the 
organism in which they were originally imbedded. H. at nine¬ 
teen months says, as a typical expression, “Papa—go—u—Uni¬ 
versity,” the u here being evidently a mutilated form of the 
preposition “ to At the outset it was lacking altogether; but by 
the twenty-sixth month it had become differentiated completely 
from the verb. We catch it here in the nineteenth month in its 
embryonic form; and so far as I have observed, all prepositions 
have a similar history, which seems to be much the same in prin¬ 
ciple in phylogenesis as in ontogenesis. Powell, 1 commenting on 
prepositional function in the Indian language, maintains that 
prepositions are often intransitive verbs. When an Indian says, 
i ‘ That hat table on, ’’ we are to consider the “ on ” as an intransi¬ 
tive verb which may be conjugated. “Prepositions may often 
be found as particles incorporated in verbs; and still further, 
verbs may contain within themselves prepositional meanings 
without ever being able to trace such meanings to any definite 
particles within the verb . . . Prepositions may be pre¬ 
fixed, infixed, or suffixed to nouns, i. e., they may be particles 
incorporated in nouns.” 
In some children’s vocabularies “up” and “down” are given 
as about the first prepositions to appear, and they are said to 
be used properly by the eighteenth month, or so. The child 
says, “up-stairs” (I want to go upstairs) and “down-stairs.” 
Now, as I have observed the early use of these words, I should 
say they were not employed with exclusive prepositional mean¬ 
ing at all. In the beginning the child says simply “up,” and 
makes this expression definite by extending his arms upward, 
by straining upward with his body, by looking upward, and by 
so employing his voice as to leave no doubt respecting his de¬ 
sires. I should say his word really denoted the place he wished 
to reach, and the method o£ reaching it, although neither of these 
elements would be focal in consciousness in the sense in which 
we can imagine they might be in the case of an adult who sat 
1 Op. cit ., p. 46. 
