O'Shea—The Child's Linguistic Development. 203 
case discharged by the verb or some other part of speech ? Does 
he employ a single term for all persons and things ? What need 
gives rise to the differentiation of special words to carry pro¬ 
nominal function? In discussing these questions it should be 
said at the outset that from the very beginning the child in his 
reactions distinguishes himself from others and from things. 
Of course, he does not make this discrimination reflectively; but 
nevertheless he does not confuse himself with foreign objects 
when he is in need of food, say; though, as President Hall 1 has 
shown, he may not recognize his fingers and toes as his own. 
But when he is hungry he does not give his food to another, 
thinking that the other is himself. As early as the sixth month 
he exhibits in his reactions a certain realization of the opposi¬ 
tion between ego and alter, for he will squall if another takes 
his bottle, or even if the mother shows, overt partiality for some 
other child. This appreciation is very keen at a year and a half; 
though the child does not yet use terms that denote distinctions 
in persons. I mention these obvious facts merely to suggest how 
far astray some persons have gone in assigning the birth of the 
ego to the period when the personal pronoun first appears. 
Their treatment of the matter has been purely a priori and meta¬ 
physical. They have reasoned that because “I” denoted self, 
the self must be in consciousness as a distinct object when tbe 
term is used, and if it can not be used the self can not be con¬ 
ceived of as a distinct entity; but they have overlooked the fact 
that for months before the child uses the pronoun he has been 
using other modes of expression w T hich show clearly that his 
personal self exists in consciousness as a thing apart from all 
other things. 
What then are these modes? First of all, gesture, grimace, 
pantomime, intonation. When a vigorous year-old child wishes 
to be taken in your arms, no one who sees and hears him can 
doubt that his discrimination between ego and alter is veiy 
clear. All that can be denoted by “ I ’ ’ is exhibited by the chii i, 
though in a generalized, consolidated, impulsive, instinctive, non- 
reflective fashion. Again, when you see a child of this age 
!Se,e his Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self. Amer. Jour, of 
Psych., April, 1898. Yol. IX, pp. 321-395. 
