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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1907.
explanation of syntactical and formative languages, the two great divisions into which all languages naturally fall, i. e., those which depend on the position of the words, and those which depend on the forms of the words in a sentence, to express complete meaning.
Syntactical languages are then shown to divide themselves into analytical, or those which depend for comprehension mainly on the position of the words, and into tonic, or those which combine tone with position for the same purpose. So also formative languages are shown to divide themselves into agglutinative and synthetic, according as the affixes are attached without or with 'alteration. Formative languages are further divided into premutative, intromutative or postmutative, according to the position of the affixes.
The Theory farther explains that, owing to a fundamental Law of Nature, no language can have ever been left to develop itself alone, and how this leads to the phenomenon of connected languages and thus to groups and families of languages. It also explains how, again according to a Law of Nature, no language has ever developed in one direction only or without subjection to outside influences, leading to the natural explanations of the genius, or peculiar constitution, that each language possesses.
It is believed that every language must conform to some part or other of the Theory and it can be shown that children and untutored adults in learning a language act on the instinctive assumption of the existence of such a Theory. Assuming the Theory to exist and to be correctly stated, it is of great practical importance as leading to the quick, accurate and thorough, because natural, acquirement of a new language.
In brief, the Theory is based on the one phenomenon which must of necessity be constant in every variety of speech, viz., the expression of a complete meaning or technically the sentence. Words are then described as components of the sentence, firstly as to the functions performed by them and next as to the means whereby they fulfil their functions. Lastly, languages are considered according to their methods of composing sentences and words.
Phonology and orthography, i. e., pronunciation, spelling, and alphabets, are not considered, as these belong to other branches of the development of the human mind.
The Theory of Universal Grammar.
(a) The Theory. The existing European system of Grammar is an old growth based on ancient Greek and Latin Grammars, which embodied the results of a system originally evolved for recording the observed laws of highly synthetic or inflected languages. It is naturally ongrained in all European scholars. The objection to it for general use and to my mind the overwhelming objection, is that it is in essentials unsuited to a very large number of languages, which are not synthetic or inflected, or at any rate have synthesis or inflection present only in a rudimentary form. It is entirely unsuited, for instance, for recording English, and in order to use it for that purpose, terms suitable for describing Greek and Latin have to be forced to new and unsuitable uses.
As regards the civilised and deeply studied languages, scholars and students have naturally become so imbued with the ancient system, that it is hardly to be expected that they can be induced to adopt any new or radically different system, and it is not now proposed to appeal to them to change that which is so well established. It is rather sought to find a way of reoording on a uniform system the languages of savages nowadays so frequently reported, and, owing to the lack of a suitable and settled method, much too often on a haphazard plan, to the detriment of their successful handling.
