The Paleolinguist Bulletin Summer 2023
The following lecture included the two accepted versions popular at the time for the origin of language: that being a gift from Heaven, and an invention of man. Robinson gave a brief account of both then introduced his own idea of spontaneous growth. This particular aspect had more far reaching consequences than he might have realized at the time, in context to the modern theory of child language acquisition.
Alabama State Intelligencer, Tuscaloosa, 27 August 1831, Page 2; Wiley, M'Guire, Henry:
A LECTURE On the Philosophy of the English Language, By A. M. Robinson, Delivered before the Tuscaloosa Lyceum, July 9th, 1831. (Highlights)
Our subject is the English language; yet some observations on the origin of language generally, may not he out of place. It has been regarded as a question of doubt and difficulty, whether language should be esteemed as a human invention, or whether its origin should be attributed to the teaching of Divine inspiration. The difficulty of accounting for it, as a human invention, is represented by an ingenious and elegant writer, Dr. Blair, as nearly insurmountable. Language he first represents as a structure the most ingenious, orderly, and sublime; a vehicle by which the most delicate and refined emotions of one mind may be transfused into another; a system, not only comprising the names of things, but indi-cating minute relations and differences among objects; unfolding the invisible sentiments of the mind, and rendering abstract notions intelligible. Not content with subserving the purposes of utility, he represents it as administering to a taste for refined luxury—adorning thought in garments of beauty—agitating the passions, and entertaining the fancy. No invention, he says, can compare with the invention
of language; and yet this invention, if made by man at all, must have been the product of the rudest ages. Language, if invented, he supposes, must have been conventional; and if conventional, society must have previously been formed; and yet there seems to be an absolute necessity for speech previously to the formation of society. These difficulties seem to him no great, that he is rather inclined to attribute language to a Divine origin. Still he supposes that Deity only communicated a few indispensable elements of speech, and left language poor, narrow, and imperfect, to be improved and perfected by man.
The subject presents intrinsic difficulties; but they have neither been fairly stated, nor happily removed by the writer referred to. Language. as it now exists, with all its complexity, order, utility, beauty, sublimity, and grandeur, it would he idle to suppose was the invention of rude barbarians...
It is doubtful whether language can properly be regarded as an invention. It rather grows up spontaneously, out of the wants, dispositions, and capacities of man, than is invented by any elaborate exertion of mind. To suppose that some ingenious individual sat down to patient study, and wrought out a system of speech, resembling in complication and arrangement any of the languages of civilized men, and prevailed on his family or tribe to adopt it, is inconceivable. No such tribe, destitute of language, ever needed such a one. They would only need a few terms; and these the very need of them, connected with accompanying circumstances, would suggest. The use of these would lead to new ideas, which, by the aid of the small stock on hand, would clothe themselves in suitable language...
It will be unnecessary to go into a long and conjectural inquiry as to the the class of words, or part of speech, which was first invented, or which necessity first called into existence. The common opinion, which is, perhaps, most probable, seems to be, that expressions or cries of surprise, love, hope, fear, aversion, anger, and other passions, must have had priority. These we call Interjections;
and some grammarians are not disposed to regard them, even yet, as a part of language—they consider them rather as natural and spontaneous indications of the various emotions of the mind. This corroborates our view of the origin of language; which regards it as a spontaneous growth, rather than a revelation or an invention. Necessity may next have given rise to names, if these could be regarded even as secondary. The fountain, the game secured for food, the shelter, the shade, which the rudest family may be supposed to enjoy, must all soon have been indicated by articulate sounds. It has been conjectured, too, from the reason of the thing, as well as from certain remains of such resemblances, still being discoverable in all languages, that many or the first articulate sounds, adopted to denote objects, were imitated of natural sounds made by the objects indications, or so connected that the mind was capable of associating them together...
Even those who have no literary law—who have never learned to read, are yet a law unto themselves; they will unavoidably fall into certain analogies, which will save their language from absolute confusion. They may fail in general correctness; their mode of speech may be esteemed vulgar or provincial, or it may become a separate dialect; still there will be a system in it, and to those who understand the dialect, they will be intelligible.
To mention one or two of these vulgar analogies: it is known that we have an irregular verb TO BITE, the preterite of which is BIT; and another irregular verb of similar sound, TO LIGHT, the preterite of which is LIT. We have still another irregular verb of similar sound, TO FIGHT; and the illiterate, following the analogy of the two former, say FIT in the preterite; as, he FIT like a lion, instead of, he fought, &c. The verb TO EAT, is pronounced in the preterite as if written ET; and TO MEET, in like manner becomes MET. The illiterate follow up the analogy in the verb TO HEAT, which is not irregular, and say HET in the preterite; as, I HET the oven.
Thus I have attempted to show that there is even order in error; in doing which I have had two objects: first, to establish my position in regard to the principle of analogy; and in the second place, to point out those vulgar errors, as modes of speech to be carefully avoided. In further support of the doctrine laid down, it may be remarked, that children follow analogy, even where the caprices of correct language desert it. They say: little, littler, littlest; good, gooder, goodest; well, weller, wellest; conforming to the rule of comparing adjectives, by adding er and est to the positive, without, of course, knowing any more of the rule which is observed, than of the exceptions which are violated, but not without perceiving, or rather feeling the analogy.
ANALYSIS:
The rest of the Robinson lecture traces the history of the English language. The extension of the verb "analogy" preterite, to the adjectivial classes of positive, comparative and superlative, is a remarkable observation, especially with respect to the current accepted theory of child innate language acquisition. There appears here, a "missing link" in language evolution-acquisition that has yet to be fundamentally addressed, in spite of the highly regarded current theories that lack substantial explanation. Robinson only partly acknowledged not just the analogy but the extension from verb to adjective as a product of the noun-to-verb-extension earlier in his lecture:
Here we may perceive how the convenience of an existing language may have facilitated thought, generalization, and abstraction. When we have supposed the existence of interjections and nouns, we have supposed a stock of materials, from which verbs and other parts of speech would easily be formed, as pressing necessity called for them. Let us illustrate this subject, the formation of one part of speech from another, from our own language, to which we will now more closely turn our attention. From the noun SHELTER, a place of security from the weather, we derive the verb TO SHELTER, to place in a shelter, or to secure from the weather; from the noun SPRING, or fountain, we derive the verb TO SPRING, or gush forth; from the noun MAN, the verb TO MAN, or fill with men:
ANALYSIS:
Thus, it would make sense to a child learning a language for the first time, to assume certain patterns that originally existed and extended from noun-to-verb, to also exist in adjectives. The error in the pattern resulted in the "invention," either by direct Divine intervention, or by human invention, or even spontaneous generation, of the irregular verb. That aberration extended into the adjective, if the evolutionary development of the word from interjection, to noun, to verb, to adjective, is an accurate portrayal of the development of the language.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Image credit: Wooden building blocks: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/wooden-building-blocks-gm154250758-17921188
James C. L'Angelle Undergraduate Research University of Nevada, Reno (c) 2023
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