nature of the activity which the sentence informs us
about), and "duckling" (another subject[53] of discourse that takes an
important though somewhat passive part in this activity). We can
visualize the farmer and the duckling and we have also no difficulty in
constructing an image of the killing. In other words, the elements
_farmer_, _kill_, and _duckling_ define concepts of a concrete order.

[Footnote 53: Not in its technical sense.]

But a more careful linguistic analysis soon brings us to see that the
two subjects of discourse, however simply we may visualize them, are not
expressed quite as directly, as immediately, as we feel them. A "farmer"
is in one sense a perfectly unified concept, in another he is "one who
farms." The concept conveyed by the radical element (_farm-_) is not one
of personality at all but of an industrial activity (_to farm_), itself
based on the concept of a particular type of object (_a farm_).
Similarly, the concept of _duckling_ is at one remove from that which is
expressed by the radical element of the word, _duck_. This element,
which may occur as an independent word, refers to a whole class of
animals, big and little, while _duckling_ is limited in its application
to the young of that class. The word _farmer_ has an "agentive" suffix
_-er_ that performs the function of indicating the one that carries out
a given activity, in this case that of farming. It transforms the verb
_to farm_ into an agentive noun precisely as it transforms the verbs _to
sing_, _to paint_, _to teach_ into the corresponding agentive nouns
_singer_, _painter_, _teacher_. The element _-ling_ is not so freely
used, but its significance is obvious. It adds to the basic concept the
notion of smallness (as also in _gosling_, _fledgeling_) or the somewhat
related notion of "contemptible" (as in _weakling_, _princeling_,
_hireling_). The agentive _-er_ and the diminutive _-ling_ both convey
fairly concrete ideas (roughly those of "doer" and "little"), but the
concreteness is not stressed. They do not so much define distinct
concepts as mediate between concepts. The _-er_ of _farmer_ does not
quite say "one who (farms)" it merely indicates that the sort of person
we call a "farmer" is closely enough associated with activity on a farm
to be conventionally thought of as always so occupied. He may, as a
matter of fact, go to town and engage in any pursuit but farming, yet
his linguistic label remains "farmer." Language her