But (to
follow up the imaginary hypothesis) the first expression that the first
man conceived may also have had a mimetic, not a phonic reflex: it may
have been exteriorised, not in a sound but in a gesture. And assuming
that it was exteriorised in a sound, there is no reason to suppose that
sound to have been monosyllabic rather than plurisyllabic. Philologists
frequently blame their own ignorance and impotence, if they do not
always succeed in reducing plurisyllabism to monosyllabism, and they
trust in the future. But their faith is without foundation, as their
blame of themselves is an act of humility arising from an erroneous
presumption.
Furthermore, the limits of syllables, as those of words, are altogether
arbitrary, and distinguished, as well as may be, by empirical use.
Primitive speech, or the speech of the uncultured man, is _continuous_,
unaccompanied by any reflex consciousness of the divisions of the word
and of the syllables, which are taught at school. No true law of
Linguistic can be founded on such divisions. Proof of this is to be
found in the confession of linguists, that there are no truly phonetic
laws of the hiatus, of cacophony, of diaeresis, of synaeresis, but
merely laws of taste and convenience; that is to say, _aesthetic_ laws.
And what are the laws of _words_ which are not at the same time laws of
_style_?
[Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment and the model language.
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