r hand it is of the greatest importance for the understanding
of the first stage of the use of words in their real significance, after
the acquirement of them has once begun, to observe how many different
ideas the child announces by one and the same verbal expression. Here
are some examples: _Tuhl_ (for Stuhl, chair) signifies--1. "My chair is
gone"; 2. "The chair is broken"; 3. "I want to be lifted into the
chair"; 4. "Here is a chair." The child (Steinthal's) says (in the
twenty-second month), when he sees or hears a barking dog, _bellt_
(barks), and thinks he has by that word designated the whole complex
phenomenon, the sight-perception of the dog and of a particular dog, and
the sound-perception; but he says _bellt_ also when he merely hears the
dog. No doubt the memory-image of the dog he has seen is then revived
for him.

Through this manifold significance of a word, which is a substitute for
a whole sentence, is exhibited a much higher activity of the intellect
than appears in the mutilation and new formation of words having but one
meaning to designate a sense-impression, for, although in the latter is
manifested the union of impressions into perceptions and also of
qualities into concepts, wherein an unconscious judgment is involved,
yet a _clear_ judgment is not necessarily connected with them. The union
of concepts into conscious clear judgments is recognized rather in the
formation of a sentence, no matter whether this is expressed by one word
or by several words.

In connection with this an error must be corrected that is wide-spread.
It consists in the assumption that all children begin to speak with
nouns, and that these are followed by verbs. This is by no means the
case. The child daily observed by me used an adjective for the first
time in the twenty-third month in order to express a judgment, the
first one expressed in the language of those about him. He said "hot"
for "The milk is too hot." In general, the appropriation and employment
of words for the first formation of sentences depends, in the first
instance, upon the action of the adults in the company of the child. A
good example of this is furnished by an observation of Lindner, whose
daughter in her fourteenth month first begged with her hands for a piece
of apple, upon which the word "apple" was distinctly pronounced to her.
After she had eaten the apple she repeated the request, re-enforcing her
gesture this time by the imitated sound _appn