Quite
aside from their intrinsic interest, linguistic forms and historical
processes have the greatest possible diagnostic value for the
understanding of some of the more difficult and elusive problems in the
psychology of thought and in the strange, cumulative drift in the life
of the human spirit that we call history or progress or evolution.—
Preface
Language
An Introduction to the Study of Speech
Edward Sapir
The
noted linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir wrote this work to show
language in “relation to other fundamental interests—the problem of
thought, the nature of the historical process, race, culture, art.” Language is not only a study of language and culture, but ultimately on the world of relations and influence.
NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE, 1921
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000
Introductory: Language Defined Language a cultural, not a biologically inherited,
function. Futility of interjectional and sound-imitative theories of
the origin of speech. Definition of language. The psycho-physical basis
of speech. Concepts and language. Is thought possible without language?
Abbreviations and transfers of the speech process. The universality of
language.
The Elements of Speech Sounds not properly elements of speech. Words and
significant parts of words (radical elements, grammatical elements).
Types of words. The word a formal, not a functional unit. The word has
a real psychological existence. The sentence. The cognitive,
volitional, and emotional aspects of speech. Feeling-tones of words.
The Sounds of Language The vast number of possible sounds. The
articulating organs and their share in the production of speech sounds:
lungs, glottal cords, nose, mouth and its parts. Vowel articulations.
How and where consonants are articulated. The phonetic habits of a
language. The “values” of sounds. Phonetic patterns.
Form in Language: Grammatical Processes Formal processes as distinct from grammatical
functions. Intercrossing of the two points of view. Six main types of
grammatical process. Word sequence as a method. Compounding of radical
elements. Affixing: prefixes and suffixes; infixes. Internal vocalic
change; consonantal change. Reduplication. Functional variations of
stress; of pitch.
Form in Language: Grammatical Concepts Analysis of a typical English sentence. Types of
concepts illustrated by it. Inconsistent expression of analogous
concepts. How the same sentence may be expressed in other languages
with striking differences in the selection and grouping of concepts.
Essential and non-essential concepts. The mixing of essential
relational concepts with secondary ones of more concrete order. Form
for form’s sake. Classification of linguistic concepts: basic or
concrete, derivational, concrete relational, pure relational. Tendency
for these types of concepts to flow into each other. Categories
expressed in various grammatical systems. Order and stress as relating
principles in the sentence. Concord. Parts of speech: no absolute
classification possible; noun and verb.
Types of Linguistic Structure The possibility of classifying languages.
Difficulties. Classification into form-languages and formless languages
not valid. Classification according to formal processes used not
practicable. Classification according to degree of synthesis.
“Inflective” and “agglutinative.” Fusion and symbolism as linguistic
techniques. Agglutination. “Inflective” a confused term. Threefold
classification suggested: what types of concepts are expressed? what is
the prevailing technique? what is the degree of synthesis? Four
fundamental conceptual types. Examples tabulated. Historical test of
the validity of the suggested conceptual classification.
Language as a Historical Product: Drift Variability of language. Individual and dialectic
variations. Time variation or “drift.” How dialects arise. Linguistic
stocks. Direction or “slope” of linguistic drift. Tendencies
illustrated in an English sentence. Hesitations of usage as symptomatic
of the direction of drift. Leveling tendencies in English. Weakening of
case elements. Tendency to fixed position in the sentence. Drift toward
the invariable word.
Language as a Historical Product: Phonetic Law Parallels in drift in related languages. Phonetic
law as illustrated in the history of certain English and German vowels
and consonants. Regularity of phonetic law. Shifting of sounds without
destruction of phonetic pattern. Difficulty of explaining the nature of
phonetic drifts. Vowel mutation in English and German. Morphological
influence on phonetic change. Analogical levelings to offset
irregularities produced by phonetic laws. New morphological features
due to phonetic change.
How Languages Influence Each Other Linguistic influences due to cultural contact.
Borrowing of words. Resistances to borrowing. Phonetic modification of
borrowed words. Phonetic interinfluencings of neighboring languages.
Morphological borrowings. Morphological resemblances as vestiges of
genetic relationship.
Language, Race and Culture Naïve tendency to consider linguistic, racial, and
cultural groupings as congruent. Race and language need not correspond.
Cultural and linguistic boundaries not identical. Coincidences between
linguistic cleavages and those of language and culture due to
historical, not intrinsic psychological, causes. Language does not in
any deep sense “reflect” culture.
Language and Literature Language as the material or medium of literature.
Literature may move on the generalized linguistic plane or may be
inseparable from specific linguistic conditions. Language as a
collective art. Necessary esthetic advantages or limitations in any
language. Style as conditioned by inherent features of the language.
Prosody as conditioned by the phonetic dynamics of a language.
