"Hebrew) |
+----------------+---+----+---+--------------+----------+--------------+

[Footnote 114: Might nearly as well have come under D.]

[Footnote 115: Very nearly complex pure-relational.]

I need hardly point out that these examples are far from exhausting the
possibilities of linguistic structure. Nor that the fact that two
languages are similarly classified does not necessarily mean that they
present a great similarity on the surface. We are here concerned with
the most fundamental and generalized features of the spirit, the
technique, and the degree of elaboration of a given language.
Nevertheless, in numerous instances we may observe this highly
suggestive and remarkable fact, that languages that fall into the same
class have a way of paralleling each other in many details or in
structural features not envisaged by the scheme of classification. Thus,
a most interesting parallel could be drawn on structural lines between
Takelma and Greek,[116] languages that are as geographically remote from
each other and as unconnected in a historical sense as two languages
selected at random can well be. Their similarity goes beyond the
generalized facts registered in the table. It would almost seem that
linguistic features that are easily thinkable apart from each other,
that seem to have no necessary connection in theory, have nevertheless a
tendency to cluster or to follow together in the wake of some deep,
controlling impulse to form that dominates their drift. If, therefore,
we can only be sure of the intuitive similarity of two given languages,
of their possession of the same submerged form-feeling, we need not be
too much surprised to find that they seek and avoid certain linguistic
developments in common. We are at present very far from able to define
just what these fundamental form intuitions are. We can only feel them
rather vaguely at best and must content ourselves for the most part with
noting their symptoms. These symptoms are being garnered in our
descriptive and historical grammars of diverse languages. Some day, it
may be, we shall be able to read from them the great underlying
ground-plans.

[Footnote 116: Not Greek specifically, of course, but as a typical
representative of Indo-European.]

Such a purely technical classification of languages as the current one
into "isolating," "agglutinative," and "inflective" (read "fusional")
cannot claim to have great value as an entering wedge into the