SUPPLEMENT I

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING IN PRIMITIVE

LANGUAGES

By BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI, Ph.D., D.Sc.

Late Professor of Anthropology, Umuersuy of London.

I. The need of a Science of Symbohsm and Meamng, such

as is presented In this volume by Ogden and Richards.
ThIS need exemphfied by the Ethnographer's difficulnee ID
dealing With pnrmtive languages.
11 Analysis of a savage utterance, showing the complex pro-
blems of Meaning which lead from mere linguistics into the
study of culture and social psychology Such a combined
hnguisnc and ethnological study needs gurdance from a
theory of symbols developed on the lines of the present work.
III The conception of ' Context of Situation' Difference in
the lmguistic perspectives which open up before the Phil-
ologist who studies dead, inscnbed languages, and before
the Ethnographer who has to deal With a primitive hvmg
tongue, existmg only In actual utterance. The study of an
object alive more enhghtemng than that of its dead remains.
The 'Sign-situation' of the Authors corresponds to the
, Context of Situanon ' here introduced
IV. Language, m ItS primitive function, to be regarded as a
mode of action, rather than as a counterSIgn of thought
AnalYSIS of a complex speech-situanon among savages.
The essential pnrmtrve uses of speech: speech-in-action,
ritual handling of words, the narrative, "phanc communion'
(speech In social intercourse]
V. The problem of Meaning in primitive languages. In-
tellectual forrnanon of Meamng by apperception not
pnrrutive. Biological view of meamng In early non-am-
 SUPPLEMENT I 297
culate sound-reactions, which are expressive, significant
and correlated to situation. Meamng m early phases of
articulate speech. Meanmg of words rooted m their prag-
matic efficiency. The origms of the magical attitude towards
words. Ethnographic and genetic substantiation of Ogden's
and Richards' views of Meamng and Defimtion.
VI. The problem of grammatical structure. Where to look
for the prototype of grammatical categories. .. Logical '
and « purely grammatical' explanations rejected. EXistence
of Real Categories m the pnrmtive man's pragmatic outlook,
which correspond to the structural categories of language,
Exemplified on the nature of the noun and of other Parts of
Speech.

I
Language, in Its developed literary and SCientific funcnons,
is an instrument of thought and of the comrnumcation of thought.
The art of properly usmg this instrument IS the most obVIOUS
aim of the study of language. Rhetoric, Grammar and Logic
have been in the past and snll are taught under the name of Arts
and studied predommantly from the practical normative pomt of
view. The laying down of rules, the testing of their vahduy,
and the attainment of perfection m style are undoubtedly im-
portant and comprehensrve objects of study, especially as Lan-
guage grows and develops with the advancement of thought and
culture, and m a certain sense even leads this advancement.
All Art, however, which bves by knowledge and not by mspira-
tion, must finally resolve Itself into scientific study, and there IS
no doubt that from all P010tsof approach we are dnven towards a
scientific theory of language. Indeed, for some time already, we
have had, Side by side With the Arts of Language, attempts at
posmg and solving various purely theoretical problems of lm-
guisnc form and meamng, approached mainly from the psycho-
logical point of view. It IS enough to mention the names of
W. von Humboldt, Lazarus and Stemthal, Whltney, Max Muller,
Mlsteli, Sweet, Wundt, Paul, F1Ock, Rozwadowskr, Wegener,
Oertel, Marty, Jespersen and others, to show that the SCience of
Language IS neither new nor unimportant. In all their works,
besides problems of formal grammar, we find attempts at an
analySIS of the mental processes which are concerned in Meanmg
But our knowledge of Psychology and of psychological methods
advances, and within the last years has made very rapid progress
 SUPPLEMENT I
indeed. The other modern Humanistic Sciences, in the first
place Sociology and Anthropology, by glVlng us a deeper under-
standing of human nature and culture, bnng their share to the
common problem. For the questions of language are indeed the
most important and central subject of all humamsnc studies
Thus, the Science of Language constantly receives contributions
of new material and stimulation from new methods. A most
important Impetus which It has thus lately received has come from
the philosophical study of symbols and mathematical data, so
bnlhantly earned on ID Cambridge by Mr Bertrand Russell and
Dr Whitehead.
In the present book Mr Ogden and Mr Richards carry over
the study of signs into the field of hngursncs, where It assumes a
fundamental Importance. Indeed, they work out a new SCience of
Symbohsm which IS sure to Yield most valuable entena for the
crmcrsm of certain errors of MetaphYSICS and of purely Formal
Logic (cf. Chaps I1, VII, VIII and IX). On the other hand,
the theory has not merely a philosophical bearing, but possesses
pracncal importance m deahng With the special, purely scientific
problems of Meamng, Grammar, Psychology and Pathology of
Speech. More especially, Important researches on AphJsla by
Dr Henry Head, which promise to throw entirely new light on
our conceptionsof Meanmg, seem to work towards the same Sem-
antic theones as those contained in the present book.' Dr
A. H. Gardrner, one of the greatest experts In hieroglyphic script
and Egyptian grammar-of winch he IS preparmg II ncw analysis
-has published some remarkable articles on Meanmg, where lie
approaches the same problems as those discussed by Mr Ogden
and Mr Riebards, and solved by them in such an interesting
manner, and their respective results do not seem to me to be
mcompanble,s Finally, I myself, at grips with the problem of
pnmmve languages from Papuo-Melancsia, had been driven
into the field of general Scmanncs.t When, however, I had
the privilege of 100klOg through the proofs at the present
book, I was astomshed to find how cxccedmgly well the thcones
there presented answered all my problems and solved my diffi-
culties ; and I was gratified to find that the position to which I
I See the prelnnmary artrcles 111 JJ.trUI. to wlnch the Author'! also
refer In Chapter X
B See Dr Gardmcr'» articles 111 Man, ]anllo.lry 1919. and 111 711e
IJu1a/1 ]oll,.,.al of PS)'j;/lology, APII11922
I Ct my article on .. Cla••llu.atory 1',11 tu le-, III the Language of
Kmwma," lJlIll"tlll of School of Urlt'1Itl1l ~I/lclus, Vul 11 .J.mI.lrG01lallt.
of tilt' lVestcm I'aafu; chapter on " \\onl> In M.\gIL-bome LII\g\ll~UL
ll.J.ta. ..
 SUPPLEMENT I 299
had been led by the study of pnrmtrve languages, was not essen-
tially a different one. I was therefore extremely glad when the
Authors offered me an opportunity to state my problems, and to
outhne my tentative solutions, side by side with their remarkable
theories I accepted It the more gladly because I hope to show
how important a light the theones of thIS book throw on the
problems of primitive languages.
It is remarkable that a number of independent inquirers, Messrs
Ogden and Richards, Dr Head, Dr Gardmer and myself, starting
from defimte and concrete, yet qune different problems, should
arrive, If not exactly at the same results stated m the same ter-
mmology, at least at the construction of similar Semantic theonea
based on psychological consideranons.
I have therefore to show how, in my own case, that of an
Ethnographer studying pnrmtrve mentahty, culture, and language,
I was driven into a lmguisnc theory very much on hnes parallel
to those of the present work. In the course of my Ethnographic
researches among some Melanesian tnbes of Eastern New Guinea,
which I conducted exclusively by means of the local language,
I collected a considerable number of texts: magical formulee,
Items of folk-lore, narratives, fragments of conversation, and
statements of my informants. When, m working out this hn-
guistic material, I tned to translate my texts into Enghsh, and
mcidentally to wnte out the vocabulary and grammar of the
language, I was faced by fundamental difficulties These diffi-
culties were not removed, but rather increased, when I consulted
the extant grammars and vocabularies of Oceanic languages.
The authors of these, mainly rrussionanes who wrote for the
practical purpose of facilitating the task of their successors,
proceeded by rule of thumb For instance, m writmg a voca-
bulary they would give the next best approximation m Enghsh
to a native word.
But the object of a scientific translation of a word is not to
give Its rough equivalent, sufficient for practical purposes, but
to state exactly whether a native word corresponds to an Idea at
least partially exisnng for English speakers, or whether It covers
an entirely foreign conception. That such foreign conceptions do
exist for native languages and m great number, is clear. All
words which describe the native SOCial order, all expressIOns
refernng to native beliefs, to specific customs, ceremomes, magical
ntes-all such words are obviously absent from Enghsh as from
any European language. Such words can only be translated into
English, not by grvmg their lmag10ary equivalent-e-a real one
300 SUPPLEMENT I
obviously cannot be found-but by explaining the meamng of
each of them through an exact Ethnographic account of the
sociology, culture and tradition of that native community.
But there IS an even more deeply reaching though subtler
difficulty: the whole manner in which a native language IS used
is ddferent from our own. In a pnmmve tongue, the whole
grammatical structure lacks the precrsion and definiteness of our
own, though It is extremely telhng 10 certain specific ways. Again
some particles, qurte untranslatable into Enghsh, give a special
flavour to native phraseology. In the structure of sentences,
an extreme simphczty hides a good deal of expreSSIveness, often
achieved by means of position and context. Returning to the
meaning of Isolated words, the use of metaphor, the begmmngs of
abstraction, of generahzanon and a vagueness associated with
extreme concreteness of expression-s-all these features baffle any
attempt at a Simple and direct translation The ethnographer
has to convey this deep yet subtle difference of language and of
the mental attitude which lies behmd it, and is expressed through
It. But this leads more and more into the general psychological
problem of Meanmg,
II
ThIS general statement of the linguisnc difficulties which beset
an Ethnographer 10 his field-work, must be Illustrated by a
concrete example. Imagine yourself suddenly transported on
to a coral atoll 10 the Pacific, srttmg m a Circle of natrves and
hstenmg to their conversation Let us assume further that there
IS an ttieal interpreter at hand, who, as far as possible, can convey
the meaning of each utterance, word for word, so that the hstener
is In possession ot all the lmguisnc data available, Would that
make you understand the conversation or even a smgle utterance?
Certainly not
Let us have a look at such a text, an actual utterance taken down
from a conversation of natives In the Trobnand Islands, N E New
Gumea In analysmg It, we shall see qurte plamly how helpless
one IS m attempnng to open up the meamng of a statement by
mere lmguisnc means, and we shall also be able to realize what
sort of additional knowledge, besides verbal equivalence, 18
necessary In order to make the utterance Significant.
I adduce a statement In native, glvmg under each word Its
nearest Enghsh equivalent.
Tasakaulo kaymatana yaklda;
We run front-wood ourselves;
 SUPPLEMENT I 301

tarooulo ooanu ; tasi'lJfla tagi1UJ

we paddle In place ; we tum we see
soda ,. uakaulo ka'u'uya
companion ours; he runs rear-wood
olu'lJfeki simalaveta Pllolu
behind their sea-arm PIlolu

The verbatim English translation of this utterance sounds at

first like a riddle or a meamngless Jumble of words; certainly not
hke a significant, unambiguous statement Now If the listener,
whom we suppose acquainted with the language, but unacquamted
with the culture of the natives, were to understand even the
general trend of this statement, he would have first to be informed
about the SItuation in which these words were spoken. He would
need to have them placed in their proper setnng of natIve culture.
In this case, the utterance refers to an episode in an overseas
trading expedition of these natives, in which several canoes take
part m a competitive spirrt, 'This last-mentIoned feature explains
also the emotional nature of the utterance: it is not a mere state-
ment of fact, but a boast, a pIece of self-glonficanon, extremely
characteristic of the Trobnanders' culture In general and of
their ceremonial barter In particular.
Only after a prehrmnary mstruction IS It possible to gain some
idea of such technu:alterms of boasting and emulatum as kaymatana
(front-wood) and ka'u'uya (rear-wood). The metaphorical use
of 'lDOod for canoe would lead us mto another field of language
psychology, but for the present It IS enough to emphasize that
• front' or • leadmg canoe' and • rear canoe' are Important
terms for a people whose attention IS so highly occupied with
competitive activities for their own sake. To the meanmg of such
words IS added a specific emotional tmge, comprehensible only
agamst the background of their tnbal psychology m ceremomal
life, commerce and enterprise.
AgaIn, the sentence where the leading sailors are described as
looking back and perceivmg their compamons laggmg behmd on
the sea-arm of Pilolu, would require a special discussion of the
geographical feehng of the natives, of their use of Imagery as a
linguistic Instrument and of a special use of the possessive pronoun
(thear sea-arm Pdolu)
All this shows the wide and complex considerations into which
we are led by an attempt to give an adequate analysis of meaning.
Instead of translating, of inserting simply an English word for a
natrve one, we are faced by a long and not altogether simple pro-
30 2 SUPPLEMENT I
cess of describing wide fields of custom, of social psychology
and of tribal orgamzanon whrch correspond to one term
or another. We see that hnguisnc analysis inevitably leads
us into the study of all the subjects covered by Ethnographic
field-work
Of course the above grven comments on the specrfic terms
(front-wood, rear-wood, their sea-arm Pilolu) are necessarily
short and sketchy But I have on purpose- chosen an utterance
which corresponds to a set of customs, already described quite
fully,' The reader of that descnption Will be able to understand
thoroughly the adduced text, as well as appreciate the present
argument
Besides the difficulties encountered JD the translation of smgle
words, difficulties which lead directly IOta descnpnve Ethno-
graphy, there are others, associated with more exclusively hn-
guistic problems, which however can be solved only on the basis
of psychological analysis. Thus It has been suggested that the
charactensncally Oceanic distmction of mclusrve and exclusive
pronouns requires a deeper explanation than any which would
confine Itself to merely grammatical relations." Again, the puzz
Img manner m which some of the obviously correlated sentences
are joined m our text by mere juxtaposition would require much
more than a simple reference, If all Its Importance and significance
had to be brought out. Those two features are well known and
have been often discussed, though according to my Ideas not
qurte exhaustively.
There are, however, certain pecuharities of pnrmtrve languages,
almost entirely neglected by grammarians, yet openmg up very
mterestmg questions of savage psychology I shall illustrate this
by a pomt, lymg on the borderland between grammar and lexico-
graphy and well exemplified m the utterance quoted.
In the highly developed Indo-European languages, a sharp
distmction can be drawn between the grammatical and lexical
function of words. The meanIng of a root of a word can be
rsol..ted from the modification of meaning due to accidence or
some other grammatical means of deterrnmanon, Thus 10 the
1V0rd run we distmguish between the meamng of the root-~apld

1 See op cu , Af'gonauls of the Western PaCIfic-An account of NatIve

Enterpnse and Adventure In the Arctupelagoes of Melaneslan New
Gumea, 1922
a See the Important Presidential Address by the late Dr W H R
Rivers m the Journal of the Royal Anthf'opologlcal Institute, Vol LIl.
January-June, 1922. p 21, and Ius HlStof'Y of Me/aneslan SOCIety,
Vol 11. P 486
 SUPPLEMENT I
personal displacement-and the modification as to time, tense,
definiteness, etc , expressed by the grammancal form, ID which
the word IS found m the given context But in natrve languages
the distmcnon IS by no means so clear and the functions of
grammar and radical meaning respectively are often confused in
a remarkable manner.
In the Melanesian languages there exist certain grammatical
instruments, used m the flection of verbs, which express somewhat
vaguely relations of time, definiteness and sequence. The most
obvious and easy thing to do for a European who wishes to use
roughly such a language for practical purposes, is to find out what
IS the nearest approach to those Melanesian forms In our languages
and then to use the savage form m the European 'lI\anner. In
the Trobnand language, for instance, from which we have taken
our above example, there IS an adverbial particle boge, which,
put before a modified verb, gives It, 10 a somewhat vague manner,
the meanmg either of a past or of a definite happening. The
verb IS moreover modified by a change m the prefixed personal
pronoun Thus the root ma (come, move hither) If used With
the prefixed pronoun of the third smgular .-has the form tma
and means (roughly), he comes. With the modified pronoun ay
---or, more emphatical, lay-It means (roughly) he came or he
has come The expreSSIOn bogeayna or bogelayma can be approXi-
mately translated by he has already come, the participle boge
making It more definite.
But this equivalence IS only approximate, suitable for some
practical purposes, such as trading WIth the natives, missionary
preaching and translanon of Chnstran hterature into native
languages. This last cannot, m my op1OIOn, be carried out WIth
any degree of accuracy In the grammars and mterpretations of
Melanesian languages, almost all of which have been written by
missionanes for practical purposes, the grammatical modifications
of verbs have been Simplyset down as equrvalent to Indo-European
tenses When I first began to use the Trobnand language in
my field-work, I was quite unaware that there might be some
snares m taking savage grammar at ItS face value and followed
the missionary way of using native mflection.
I had soon to learn, however, that this was not correct and I
learnt It by means of a practical mistake, which interfered shghtly
With my field-work and forced me to grasp native flection at the
cost of my personal comfort. At one time I was engaged m
makmg observations on a very interestmg transaction which took
place In a lagoon VIllage of the Trobnands between the coastal
 SUPPLEMENT I
fishermen and the inland gardeners.1 I had to follow some import-
ant preparanons m the village and yet I did not want to ffilSS
the arnval of the canoes on the beach. I was busy registering and
photographing the proceedings among the huts, when word went
round, 'they have come already'-boge laymayse. I left my
work In the village unfinished to rush some quarter of a mile to
the shore, ID order to find, to my disappointment and mortification,
the canoes far away, punting slowly along towards the beach !
Thus I came some ten minutes too soon, Just enough to make me
lose my opporturntes In the village !
It required some time and a much better general grasp of the
language before I came to understand the nature of my mistake
and the proper use of words and forms to express the subtleties
of temporal sequence. Thus the root ma which means come,
moo« hIther, does not contain the meaning, covered by our word
(lTTIfJe. Nor does any grammatical determination give It the
special and temporal defirunon, which we express by, ' they have
come, they have arnved,' The form bogelaymayse, which I heard
on that memorable morning m the lagoon village, means to a
native' they have already been moving hither ' and not' they have
already come here.'
In order to achieve the spatial and temporal definition which
we obtain by usmg the past definite tense, the natives have recourse
to certain concrete and specific expreSSlOns Thus m the case
quoted, the Villagers, m order to convey the fact that the canoes
had arnved, would have used the word to anchor, to moor.
, They have already moored their canoes,' boge aykotasa, would
have meant, what I assumed they had expressed by boge laymayse.
That IS, m tlus case the natives use a different root Instead of a
mere grammatical modification.
Returmng to our text, we have another telhng example of the
characteristic under discusaion. The quaint expression 'we
paddle m place' can only be properly understood by reahzmg
that the word paddle has here the function, not of descnbmg
what the crew are doing, but of indicating their Immediate
proximity to the village of their destination. Exactly as 10 the
previous example the past tense of the word to come (' they have.
come ') which we would have used 10 our language to convey the
fact of arnval, has another meaOlng In native and has to be
revlaced by another root which expresses the Idea ; so here the
native root fOa, to mooe thIther, could not have been used In
1 It was a ceremony of the Wasl, a form of exchange of vegetable
food for fish See op cu , Argonauts of the Western Pacific, pp 187-189
and plate XXXVI
 SUPPLEMENT I
(approximately) past definite tense to convey the meanmg of
• arnve there,' but a special root expressmg the concrete act of
paddhng IS used to mark the spatial and temporal relations of
the leading canoe to the others. The ongIn of this Imagery is
obvious. Whenever the natives arnve near the shore of one of
the overseas VIllages, they have to fold the sail and to use the
paddles, since there the water is deep, even quite close to the
shore, and puntmg Impossible. So • to paddle' means • to
arrive at the overseas Village.' It may be added that In this
expression • we paddle m place,' the two remaining words tn
and place would have to be retranslated In a free English inter-
pretation by near the snllag«.
With the help of such an analysis as the one just given, this or
any other savage utterance can be made comprehensible In this
case we may sum up our results and embody them ID a free
commentary or paraphrase of the statement:
A number of natives Sit together. One of them, who has Just
come back from an overseas expedinon, gIVes an account of the
sailing and boasts about the supenonty of his canoe. He tells
his audience how, In crossmg the sea-arm of Pilolu (between the
Trobnands and the Amphletts), his canoe sailed ahead of all
others. When nearing their destmatron, the leading sailors
looked back and saw their comrades far behind, still on the sea-
arm of Pilolu.
Put In these terms, the utterance can at least be understood
broadly, though for an exact appreciation of the shades and details
of meanmg a full knowledge of the native customs and psychology,
as well as of the general structure of their language, IS indis-
pensable.
It is hardly necessary perhaps to POInt out that all I have said
in thIs section is only an dlustration on a concrete example of the
general pnnciples so bnlhantly set forth by Ogden and Richards
In Chapters I, III and IV of their work. What I have tned to
make clear by analysis of a primitrve hnguistic text is that language
IS essentially rooted In the reality of the culture, the tribal life and
customs of a people, and that it cannot be explained WIthOUt
constant reference to these broader contexts of verbal utterance.
The theones embodied In Ogden's and Richards' diagram of
Chapter I, In their treatment of the • srgn-srtuation ' (Chapter
Ill) and in their analysis of perception (Chapter IV) cover and
generalize all the details of my example.
 SUPPLEMENT I

III
Returning once more to our native utterance, it needs no
special stressmg that m a primitive language the meaning of any
single word IS to a very hIgh degree dependent on its context.
The words ' wood " ' paddle', , place ' had to be retranslated in
the free interpretation m order to show what IS their real meamng,
conveyed to a native by the context m which they appear Agam,
it IS equally clear that the meaning of the expression ' we arrive
near the village (of our destination) , hterally . 'we paddle In
place', IS detemuned only by taking It in the context of the whole
utterance. This latter again, becomes only mtelligible when It IS
placed withm Its context of situatIon, If I may be allowed to coin
an expressionwluch indicates on the one hand that the conception
of context has to be broadened and on the other that the ntuaium
m which words are uttered can never be passed over as Irrelevant
to the linguistic expression, We see how the conception of con-
text must be substantially Widened, Jf it is to furnish us With Its
full utility. In fact it must burst the bonds of mere Imguisnca
and be earned over into the analysis of the general conditions
under which a languageis spoken. Thus, starting from the wider
Idea of context, we arrive once more at the results of the foregomg
section, namely that the study of any language, spoken by a
people who hve under conditions different from our own and
possess a different culture, must be earned out 1Il conjunction
With the study of their culture and of their environment.
But the WIdened conception of context of muat,on yJe1ds more
than that. It makes clear the difference in scope and method
between the hnguisncs of dead and of hvmg languages The
material on which almost all our lmguisnc study has been done
80 far belongs to dead languages. It is present in the form of
wntten documents, naturally Isolated, torn out of any context of
situatwn. In fact, written statements are set down Withthe pur-
pose of being self-contained and self-explanatory. A mortuary
inscnpnon, a fragment of primeval laws or precepts, a chapter or
statement in a sacred book, or to take a more modern example,
a passage from a Greek or Latm philosopher, historian or poet-
one and all of these were composed With the purpose of bringing
therr message to posterity unaided, and they had to contain this
message within their own bounds.
To take the clearest case, that of a modern scientific book, the
Writer of It sets out to address every mdividual reader who wlIl
peruse the book and has the necessary SCIentific traamng. He
 SUPPLEMENT I
tries to influence his reader's mind 10 certain directions WIth
the printed text of the book before him, the reader, at the wnter's
bidding, undergoes a series of processes-he reasons, reflects,
remembers, unagmes. The book by Itself IS suffiCIent to direct
the reader's mmd to Its meanIng, and we might be tempted to
say metaphorically that the meaning IS wholly contained m 01
earned by the book.
But when we pass from a modern crvihzed language, of which
we thmk mostly m terms of wntten records, or from a dead one
which survrves only m mscnption, to a pnminve tongue, never
used m writIng, where all the rnatenal hves only in wmged words,
passmg from man to man-there It should be clear at once that
the conception of meanmg as contained m an utterance IS false and
futile, A statement, spoken m real hfe, IS never detached from
the situation m which It has been uttered. For each verbal
statement by a human being has the aim and funcnon of expres-
SIng some thought or feehng actual at that moment and m that
situauon, and necessary for some reason or other to be made
known to another person or persons-m order either to serve
purposes of common acnon, or to establish ties of purely SOCIal
communion, or else to deliver the speaker of Violent feelings or
passions. WIthout some imperatrve stimulus of the moment,
there can be no spoken statement. In each case, therefore,
utterance and situation are bound up mextrrcably with each
other and the context of situation IS mdispensable for the under-
standing of the words Exactly as m the reality of spoken or
written languages, a word without llnguutlc context IS a mere
figment and stands for nothing by Itself, so m the reality of a
spoken hvmg tongue, the utterance has no meanmg except In the
context of ntuatum
It will be qurte clear now that the point of view of the Philo-
logist, who deals only WIth remnants of dead languages, must
differ from that of the Ethnographer, who, depnved of the oJsi-
fied, fixed data of mscnpnons, has to rely on the hving reality
of spoken language tn jluxu. The former has to reconstruct the
general situanon-e-z e., the culture of a past people-from the
extant statements, the latter can study directly the condrnons
and srtuanons charactensnc of a culture and interpret the
statements through them. Now I claim that the Ethnographer's
perspecnve IS the one relevant and real for the formation of
fundamental hnguistic concepnons and for the study of the hfe
of languages, whereas the Plulologsst'a point of view is fictitious
and Irrelevant. For language m Its engine has been merely the
308 SUPPLEMENT I
free, spoken sum totalof utterances such as we find now in a savage
tongue. All the foundanons and fundamental characteristics of
human speech have received their shape and character ID the
stage of development proper to Ethnographic study and not m
the Philologist's domain To define Meamng, to explain the
essential granunatical and lexical characters of language on the
material furnished by the study of dead languages, IS nothing
short of preposterous m the hght of our argument. Yet It would
be hardly an exaggeration to say that 99 per cent. of all Imguistic
work has been msprred by the study of dead languages or at best
of written records torn completely out of any context of Situation.
That the Ethnographer's perspective can yield not only general-
ities but positive, concrete conclusions I shall mdicate at least in
the followmg sections
Here I Wish again to compare the standpoint Just reached with
the results of Messrs Ogden and Richards, I have written the
above m my own terminology, m order to retrace the steps of my
argument, such as it was before I became acquainted WIth the
present book. But It is obVIOUS that the context of suuatson, on
winch such a stress IS laid here. IS nothing else but the sign-ntuatlon
of the Authors. Their contention, which IS fundamental to all the
arguments of their book, that no theory of mearnng can be given
WIthout the study of the mechanism of reference, IS also the main
gist of my reasomng In the foregoing paragraphs. The opening
chapters of their work show how erroneous It is to consider Mean-
ing as a real ennty, contamed ID a word or utterance The ethno-
graphically and historically mteresnng data and comments of
Chapter II show up the mamfold Illusions and errors due to a
false attitude towards words. This attitude m wliich the word
is regarded as a real entity, contammg Its meanmg as a Soul-box
contains the spmtual part of a person or thmg, IS shown to be
denved from the pnmitrve, magical uses of language and to
reach nght into the most Important and infiuennal systems of
metaphysics. Meanmg, the real • essence' of a word, achieves
thus Real EXIStence In Plato's realm of Ideas; and it becomes the
Universal, actually eXlstmg, of medireval Reahsta, The misuse
of words, based always on a false analysis of their Semantic
function, leads to all the ontological morass in philosophy, where
truth is found by spmmng out meaning from the word, its assumed
receptacle.
The analysis of meaning ID primitive languages affords a
striking confirmation of Messrs Ogden and Rrchards' theories.
For the clear rea1Jzation of the mnmate connection between hn-
 SUPPLEMENT I 3°9
gulStlC mterpretation and the analysis of the culture to which the
language belongs, shows convincingly that neither a Word nor ItS
Meamng has an independent and self-sufficient existence. The
Ethnographrc view of language proves the pnncrple of Symbolic
Relativity as It might be called, that IS that words must be treated
only as symbols and that a psychology of symbolIc reference must
serve as the baSIS for all SCIence of language. S10ce the whole
world of "thmgs-to-be-expressed ' changes with the level of
culture, wrth geographical, SOCial and economic conditions, the
consequence IS that the meamng of a word must be always
gathered, not from a passive contemplation of this word, but from
an analysis of ItS functions, with reference to the given culture.
Each prmunve or barbarous tribe, as well as each type of civrhza-
non, has ItS world of meamngs and the whole hngurstic apparatus
of this people-i-therrstore of words and theirtype of grammar-can
only be explained 111 connection With their mental requirements.
In Chapter III of this book the Authors give an analysis of
the psychology of symbolic reference, which together With the
material collected m Chapter 11 IS the most satisfactory treatment
of the subject which I have ever seen. I Wish to remark that the
use of the word' context' by the Authors IS compatible, but not
Identical, With my use of thrs word m the expressron ' context of
situation" I cannot enter here into an attempt to bnng our
respective nomenclature into lme and must allow the reader to
test the Relanvity of SymbolIsm on tlus little example.

IV
So far, I have dealt mainly With the Simplest problems of
meamng, those associated With the definmon of smgle words
and With the lexicographical task of bnnging home to a European
reader the vocabulary of a strange tongue And the mam result
of our analysis was that It IS Impossible to translate words of a
pnrmtrve language or of one Widely different from our own,
Without gl\'1Og a detailed account of the culture of ItS users and
thus providmg the common measure necessary for a translation.
But though an Ethnographic background IS mdispensable for
a scientific treatment of a language, It IS by no means sufficient,
and the problem of Meamng needs a special theory of ItS own.
I shall try to show that, looking at language from the Ethno-
graphic perspective and usmg our conception of context of Situ-
atum, we shall be able to give an outhne of a Semantic theory,
3IO SUPPLEMENT I
useful in the work on Primitive Lmguistics, and throwing some
light on human language m general
FIrst of all, let us try, from our standpoint, to form a view of
the Nature of language. The lack of a clear and precise view of
Linguistic function and of the nature of Meaning, has been, I be-
heve, the cause of the relative sterility of much otherwise excellent
Iinguisnc theorizing The direct manner In which the Authors
face thiS fundamental problem and the excellent argument by
which they solve it, constitute the permanent value of their work.
The study of the above-quoted native text has demonstrated
that an utterance becomes comprehensive only when we interpret
it by Its context of situation The analysis of tlns context should
give us a glimpse of a group of savages bound by reciprocal ties
of mterests and ambitions, of emotional appeal and response
There was boastful reference to competitive trading acnvmes,
to ceremonial overseas expedmons, to a complex of sentiments,
ambitions and ideas known to the group of speakers and hearers
through their being steeped In tribal tradmon and having been
themselves actors m such events as those described In the nar-
rative. Instead of giving a narrative I could have adduced lm-
guistic samples still more deeply and directly embedded in the
context of situation.
Take for instance language spoken by a group of nanves
engaged in one of their fundamental pursuits m search of sub-
sistence-c-huntmg, fishing; nlhng the sod; or else m one of those
acnvrnes, In which a savage tnbe express some essentially human
forms of energy-war, play or sport, ceremonial performance or
artistic display such as dancing or s1Og1Og The actors m any
such scene are all following a purposeful actrvrty, are all set
on a defimte aim ; they all have to act in a concerted manner
according to certam rules estabhshed by custom and tradition
In this, Speech IS the necessary means of communion ; It IS the
one mdispensable instrument for creating the ties of the moment
Without which unified SOCial action IS impossible.
Let us now consider what would be the type of talk passing
between people thus actmg, what would be the manner of ItS
use. To make It qurte concrete at first, let us follow up a party of
fishermen on a coral lagoon, spymg for a shoal of fish, trying to
impnson them m an enclosure of large nets, and to drive them
into small net-bags-an example which I am choosing also
because of my personal famihanty With the procedure 1
1 Cf the wnter's article on .. Frshmg and Flsh.mg MagIC ID the
Trobnand Islands," Man, 1918.
 SUPPLEMENT I 3I I
The canoes ghde slowly and noiselessly, punted by men especi-
ally good at this task and always used for It. Other experts who
know the bottom of the lagoon, with ItS plant and ammal hfe,
are on the look-out for fish. One of them sights the quarry.
Customary signs, or sounds or words are uttered. Somenmea a
sentence full of technical references to the channels or patches on
the lagoon has to be spoken ; sometimes when the shoal is near
and the task of trapping IS simple, a conventional cry IS uttered
'lot too loudly. Then, the whole fleet stops and ranges itself-
every canoe and every man m It performing his appointed task-
according to a customary routine. But, of course, the men, as
they act, utter now and then a sound expressing keenness m the
pursuit or Impatience at some technrcal difficulty, JOy of achieve-
ment or disappomtment at failure Again, a word of command
IS passed here and there, a techmcal expression or explanation
which serves to harmonise their behaviour towards other men.
The whole group act m a concerted manner, deterrnmed by old
tribal tradition and perfectly famihar to the actors through bfe-
long experience. Some men m the canoes cast the WIde encirchng
nets mto the water, others plunge, and wading through the shallow
lagoon, dnve the fish mto the nets Others agalO stand by With
the small nets, ready to catch the fish. An animated scene, full
of movement follows, and now that the fish are m their power the
fishermen speak loudly, and give vent to their feebngs. Short,
tellmg exclamations fly about, which might be rendered by such
words as: 'Pull m," Let go,' 'Shift further," LIft the net'; or again
technical expressions completely untranslatable except by minute
descnption of the instruments used, and of the mode of action.
All the language used during such a pursuit IS full of technical
terms, short references to surroundings, rapid mdrcations of
change-aU based on customary types of behaviour, well-known
to the participants from personal experience Each utterance IS
essentially bound up With the context of Situation and With the
aim of the pursuit, whether It be the short indications about the
movements of the quarry, or references to statements about the
surroundmgs, or the expression of feeling and passion inexorably
bound up WIth behaviour, or words of command, or correlation
of action, The structure of all this linguisnc matenal IS in-
extncably rmxed up WIth, and dependent upon, the course of the
activity m which the utterances are embedded. The vocabulary,
the meamng of the particular words used m their charactensnc
techmcahty IS not less subordmate to acnon. For technical
language, m matters of practical pursuit, acquires Its meanlOg
31 2 SUPPLEMENT I
only through personal participation in this type of pursuit. It
has to be learned, not through reflection but through action,
Had we taken any other example than fishing, we would have
reached Similar results. The study of any form of speech used
in connection With vital work would reveal the same grammatical
and lexical pecuhannes : the dependence of the meanmg of each
word upon practical expenence, and of the structure of each
utterance upon the momentary situation 10 which It 18 spoken.
Thus the consideranon of hnguisnc uses associated With any
practical pursuit, leads us to the conclusion that language in its
pnrmtrve forms ought to be regarded and studied agamst the
background of human actrvines and liS a mode of human behaviour
m practical matters. We have to realize that language ongmally,
among prmntive, non-cmhzed peoples was never used as a mere
mirror of reflected thought The manner in which I am usmg It
now, m wntmg these words, the manner m which the author of
a book, or a papyrus or a hewn mscnption has to use It, IS a very
far-fetched and denvatrve function of language. In this.Janguage
becomes a condensed piece of reflection, a record of fact or thought
In Its pnrmtrve uses, language functions as a hnk ID concerted
human actrvity, as a piece of human behaviour. It IS a mode of
action and not an instrument of reflection.
These conclusions have been reached on an example in which
language IS used by people engaged in practical work, ID which
utterances are embedded in action. ThIS conclusion might be
questioned by an objection that there are also other lmguisnc
uses even among pnrmtrve peoples who are debarred from wntmg
or any means of external fixation of Imguisnc texts. Yet even they,
It might be urged, have fixed texts ID their songs, saymgs, myths
and legends, and most Important, in their ritual and magical
formulee. Are our conclusions about the nature of language
correct, when faced With this use of speech; can our views
remain unaltered when, from speech ID action, we turn our
'attention to free narrative or to the use of language ID pure SOCial
mtercourse; when the object of talk is not to achieve some aim
but the exchange of words almost as an end m Itself?
Anyone who has followed our analysis of speech 10 action and
compares It with the diSCUSSIOn of the narrative texts m Section
11, will be convinced that the present conclusions apply to nar-
rative speech as well. When incidents are told or discussed among
a group of hsteners, there IS, first, the situation of that moment
made up of the respective SOCial, intellectual and emotional
attitudes of those present. Wlthm thrs situanon, the narrative
 SUPPLEMENT I
creates new bonus and sentiments by the emotional appeal of the
words. In the narrative quoted, the boasting of a man to a mixed
audience of several visitors and strangers produces feehngs of
pride or mortificanon, of tnumph or envy In every case,
narrative speech as found m primitive communities is primarily
a mode of social action rather than a mere reflection of thought.
A narrative IS associated also indirectly with one situation to
which It refers-m our text with a performance of competitive
sailmg. In this relation, the words of a tale are sigmficant because
of previous experiences of the hsteners; and their meamng depends
on the context of the situation referred to, not to the same degree
but In the same manner as m the speech of action. The difference
m degree IS Important; narrative speech IS derived m Its function,
and It refers to action only indirectly, but the way in which it
acquires ItS meanmg can only be understood from the direct
function of speech In action To use the termmology of this
work: the referential function of a narrative IS subordinate to
Its social and emotive function, as classified by the Authors m
Chapter X. F. Fática
The case of language used m free, aimless, social intercourse
requires specral consrderation. When a number of people SIt
together at a VIllage fire, after all the dally tasks are over, or when
they chat, restmg from work, or when they accompany some
mere manual work by gossip quite unconnected with what they
are domg-e-it is clear that here we have to do With another mode of
usmg language, With another type of speech function. Language
here IS not dependent upon what happens at that moment, It
seems to be even deprived of any context of situation. The
meanmg of any utterance cannot be connected With the speaker's
or hearer's behaviour, With the purpose of what they are domg,
A mere phrase of pohteness, In use as much among savage
tnbes as m a European drawing-room, fulfils a function to
which the meaning of ItS words IS almost completely Irrelevant.
Inquines about health, comments on weather, affirmattons of
some supremely obVIOUS state of thmgs-s-all such are exchanged,
110t m order to inform, not In this case to connect people In action,
certainly not In order to express any thought It would be even
Incorrect, I think, to say that such words serve the purpose of
estahhshmg a common sentiment, for this IS usually absent from
such current phrases of Intercourse; and where It purports to
exist, as In expressions of sympathy, It IS avowedly spurious on
one Side What is the rauon d'itre, therefore, of such phrases as
, How do you do?' • Ab, here you are,' 'Where do you come
 SUPPLEMENT I
from ~, • Nice day to-day '-all of which serve in one society or
another as formula: of greeting or approach ?
I thmk that, 10 discussing the function of Speech In mere
sociabihnes, we come to one of the bedrock aspects of man's
nature 10 society. There IS 10 all human bemgs the well-known
tendency to congregate, to be together, to eDJoy each other's
company. Many mstmcts and innate trends, such as fear or
pugnacity, all the types of social sentiments such as ambmon,
vamty, passion for power and wealth, are dependent upon and
associated With the fundamental tendency which makes the mere
presence of others a necessity for man 1
Now speech IS the mtimate correlate of this tendency, for, to
a natural man, another man's silence IS not a reassuring factor,
but, on the contrary, somethmg alarmmg and dangerous The
stranger who cannot speak the language IS to all savage tribesmen
a natural enemy To the primitive mmd, whether among savages
or our own uneducated classes, taciturnity means not only un-
fnendlmess but directly a bad character. This no doubt vanes
greatly WIth the national character but remains true as a general
rule. The breaking of silence, the communion of words IS the
first act to establish lmks of fellowship, which IS consummated
only by the breaking of bread and the comrnumon of food.
The modern English expression, • Nice day to-day' or the Mel-
anestan phrase, • Whence comest thou? ' are needed to get over
the strange and unpleasant tension which men feel when facing
each other 10 silence,
After the first formula, there comes a flowof language, purpose-
less expressions of preference or aversion, accounts of Irrelevant
happemngs, comments on what IS perfectly obVIOUS. Such
gossip, as found m Pnrmnve SOCieties, differs only a little from
our own Always the same emphasis of affirmation and consent,
mixed perhaps With an incidental disagreement which creates
the bonds of antipathy. Or personal accounts of the speaker's
VIews and hfe history, to which the hearer listens under some
restraint and With slightly veiled Impatience, waiting till his own
turn arrives to speak. For m this use of speech the bonds created
between hearer and speaker are not quite symmetrical, the man
hnguisncally active receivmg the greater share of social pleasure
and self-enhancement But though the heanng given to such
I I aVOId on purpose the use of the expression Herd-mstmct, for
I believe that the tendency In question cannot strictly be called an
mstmct Moreover the term Herd-instmct has been misused In a
recent sociologreal work which has, however, become sufficiently
popular to establish Its views on this subject WIth the general reader
 SUPPLEMENT I
utterances is as a rule not as intense as the speaker's own share,
It IS quite essential for his pleasure, and the reciprocity IS estab-
hshed by the change of roles
There can be no doubt that we have here a new type of linguistic
use-phatic communion I am tempted to call It, actuated by the
demon of termmological invention-e-a type of speech m which
ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words. Let us
look at It from the special point of view with which we are here
concerned; let us ask what hght It throws on the function or
nature of language Are words In Phatic Communion used
pnmanly to convey meanmg, the meaning which IS symbohcally
theirs ~ Certamly not' They fulfil a SOCial function and that
is their pnncipal aim, but they are neither the result of intellectual
reflection, nor do they necessarily arouse reflection In the hstener,
Once again we may say that language does not function here as a
means of transmission of thought.
But can we regard It as a mode of action ? And in what relation
does It stand to our crucial conception of context of situanon ~
It IS obVIOUS that the outer situatron does not enter directly into
the technique of speaking. Butwhat can be considered as sztuatzon
when a number of people aimlessly gossip together? It consrsts
in just this atmosphere of socrabihty and m the fact of the per-
sonal communion of these people But this IS In fact achieved by
speech, and the situation m all such cases IS created by the
exchange of words, by the specific feehngs which form convivial
gregariousness, by the give and take of utterances which make up
ordmary gossip The whole Situation consists m what happens
hnguistically. Each utterance IS an act servmg the direct aim of
bmding hearer to speaker by a tie of some SOCial sentiment or
other. Once more language appears to us m this function not as
an Instrument of reflection but as a mode of action.
I should like to add at once that though the examples discussed
were taken from savage hfe, we could find among ourselves exact
parallels to every type of lmguistic use so far discussed. The
bmding tissue of words which unites the crew of a ship m bad
weather, the verbal concomitants of a company of soldiers m
action, the technical language running parallel to some practical
work or sporting pursuit-c-all these resemble essentially the pnrm-
trve uses of speech by man m action and our discussion could have
been equally well conducted on a modern example. I have chosen
the above from a Savage Community, because I wanted to empha-
size that such and no other ISthe nature of pnm,t,ve speech.
Again m pure soctabihnes and gossip we use language exactly
3 I6 SUPPLEMENT I
as savages do and our talk becomes the • phanc commuruon '
analysed above, which serves to establish bonds of personal
umon between people brought together by the mere need of
companionship and does not serve any purpose of commumcatmg
ideas. cc Throughout the Western world It is agreed that people
must meet frequently, and that it is not only agreeable to talk,
but that It IS a matter of common courtesy to say something even
when there is hardly anything to say" I_as the Authors remark.
Indeed there need not or perhaps even there must not be any-
thing to communicate. As long as there are words to exchange,
phatic communion brings savage and CIVIlized alike Into the
pleasant atmosphere of polite, SOCial Intercourse.
It IS only in certam very special uses among a Civilized com-
muruty and only In Its highest uses that language is employed
to frame and express thoughts In poetic and literary production,
language is made to embody human feelings and passions, to
render m a subtle and convmcing manner certain Inner states
and processes of mind In works of science and philosophy,
highly developed types of speech are used to control Ideas and to
make them common property of Civilized mankind.
Even m this function, however, It IS not correct to regard
language as a mere residuum of reflective thought. And the
conception of speech as serving to translate the inner processes of
the speaker to the hearer IS one-Sided and gives us, even With
regard to the most highly developed and specialised uses of speech,
only a partial and certainly not the most relevant view.
To restate the main posrtion arrived at m this section we can
say that language in Its pnmitrve function and ongmal form has
an essentially pragmatic character; that it IS a mode of behaviour,
an indispensable element of concerted human action. And
negatively : that to regard It as a means for the embodiment or
expression of thought IS to take a one-Sided view of one of Its
most denvate and specialized functions.

v
Thrs view of the nature of language I have tned to estabhsh
by a detailed analysis of examples, by reference to concrete and
actual facts I trust therefore that the distmction which I have
explained, between • mode of action' and I means of thinking,'
will not remain an empty phrase, but that It has received Its con-
tent from the adduced facts. Nothing, however, establishes the
1 Cited from Chapter I of the present work
 SUPPLEMENT I 317
positive value and empmcal nature of a general pnnciple so
completely as when It IS shown to work m the solution of definite
problems of a somewhat difficult and puzzlmg description.
In hnguistics we have an intractable subject of this kind m the
Problem of Meamng It would perhaps be presumptuous for
me to tackle tlus subject in an abstract and general manner and
With any phrlosophical ambition, after It has been shown by
Ogden and Richards (Chapters VIII and IX) to be of so hIghly
dangerous a nature But I SImply want to approach It through
the narrow avenue of Ethnographic empiricism and show how
It looks viewed from the perspective of the pragmatic uses of
prirmnve speech.
This perspective has allowed us to class human speech with
the active modes of human behaviour. rather than with the
reflective and cogmtrve ones. But this outside View and whole-
sale conception must be st111 supplemented by some more detailed,
analytic consideranons, If we want to arnve at a clearer Idea of
Meaning.
In Chapter III of the present work the Authors dISCUSS the
psychology of Sign-situations and the acquismon of significance
by symbols. I need not repeat or summarize their penetrating
analysis, which to me IS extremely convmcmg and satisfactory
and forms the corner-stone of their lmguisnc theory. I wish
however to follow up one point m their argument. a point closely
related to our pragmatic conception of language.
The Authors reject, and rightly so, the explanations of mearung
by suggestion, association or apperception, urg10g that such
explanations are not sufficiently dynamic. Of course new ideas
are formed by apperception and since a new idea constitutes a
new meamng and receives m due course a new name, apper-
ception IS a process by which significance is created. But that
happens only m the most highly developed and refined uses of
language for screntific purposes From our previous discussion
it should be well estabhshed that such a type of formulation of
meaning is highly derivative and cannot be taken as the pattern
on which to study and explain sigmficance. And this not only
With reference to savages, but also m our own hnguisnc hfe,
For a man who uses his language screntifically has his attitude
towards language already developed by and rooted in the more
elementary forms of word-function. Before he has ever begun
to acquire his scrennfic vocabulary in a highly artificial manner
by apperception-which, moreover, takes place only to a very
hmited degree-he has learnt to use, used and grown up using
318 SUPPLEMENT I
words and constructions, the mearnng of which has been formed
m his mind m quite a different manner. And this manner is
pnmary as regards time, for It IS denved from earlier uses ; It is
more general, because the vast majority of words thus receive
their meamng , and It IS more fundamental, since it refers to
the most Important and prevalent uses of speech-those which we
have indicated above as common to pnmrtrve and crvihzed
humanity.
This manner of formation of meamng we must now proceed
to analyse more m detail, with reference to our pragmatic view of
language And It will be best done by genetic conarderations,
by an analysis of infantile uses of words, of primitive forms, of
sigmficance and of pre-scientific language among ourselves.
Some glimpses of formatton of meaning m mfancy and childhood
will appear the more important, as modem psychology seems to
be more and more inclined to assign a permanent influence to
early mental habits m the outlook of the adult.
The emission of marticulate emotional sound and of articulate
speech IS a biological arrangement of enormous Importance to the
young and adult of the human spectes, and IS rooted deeply m
the mstmctrve and physiological arrangement of the human
organism. Children, savages and crvihzed adults alike react With
vocal expression to certain situations-whether these arouse
bodily pa10 or mental anguish, fear or paSSIOn, Intense cunosity
or powerful JOy. These sound reactions are part of the human
expression of emotions and as such possess, as has been established
by Darwin and others, a survival value or are at least themselves
relics of such values. Anyone m contact With infanta and small
children knows that they express Without the slightest ambiguity
their mood, their emotion, their need and desire. Concentrating
our attention for the moment on mfantile utterances of tlus
type, It can be said that each sound IS the expression of
some emotional state; that for surrounding people It has a
certain sigmficance ; and that It IS correlated With the outer
situation surrounding and compnsmg the child's orgamsm-a
situation which makes the child hungry or afraid or pleased or
interested.
All this is true of the non-articulate sounds emitted by an
infant, such as gurghng, waihng, squeahng, crowing and weeping.
Later on, certain shghtly articulated utterances follow, first
syllables-gu, ma, ba, etc.-repeated indefinitely, mixed up and
blurred by other sounds. These sounds serve m a parallel
manner to express certam psycho-physiological states and to
 SUPPLEMENT I
expend some of the child's energy. They are a sign of health
and they are a form of indispensable exercise. Emission of sounds
IS at the earhest and at the later stage of verbal development,
one of the child's main activities, persistent and passionate, as
every parent knows from pleasant and unpleasant expenences
ahke!
How shall we conceive the formation of meaning at these
earliest stages? Here, m this somewhat different approach, the
pragmatic view of language obtrudes Itself again The child acts
by sound at this stage, and acts m a manner which is both adapted
to the outer situation, to the child's mental state and which is
also mtelhgible to the surrounding adults. Thus the sigmficance
of sound, the meaning of an utterance IS here Identical With the
active response to surroundmgs and With the natural expression
of emonons The meaning of such a sound IS derived from one
of the earliest and most Important forms of human activity.
When sound begins to articulate, the child's mind develops
11. a parallel manner and becomes interested m isolating objects
from ItS surroundmgs, though the most relevant elements,
associated With the food and comfort of the infant, have been
already Singled out previously. At the same time, the chrld
becomes aware of the sounds produced by the adults and the
other children of Its surroundings, and It develops a tendency to
Imitate them. The existence of a SOCial miheu surrounding the
child IS a factor of fundamental biological Importance m the
upbnngmg of the human young and It IS also an indispensable
element In speech formation. Thus the child who begms to
articulate certain syllables soon finds these syllables repeated by
the adults and this paves the way to a clearer, more articulate
enunciation.
It would be extremely mterestmg to find out, whether and how
far some of the earliest articulated sounds have a • natural'
meamng, that IS a meamng based on some natural connection
between sound and object. The only fact here relevant I can
quote from personal observation. I have noticed In two children
that at the stage where distmct syllables begm to be formed the
repeated sound, ma, ma, ma • . . appears when the child IS dis-
satisfied generally, when some essential want IS not fulfilled or
some general discomfort IS oppressmg It. The sound atnacts the
most Important object m ItS surroundings, the mother, and With
her appearance the painful state of mmd IS remedied Can It be
that the entry of the sound mama . . . Just at the stage when
articulate speech begms-e-wrth Its emotional significance and ItS
320 SUPPLEMENT I
power of bringing the mother to the rescue-has produced in a
great number of human languages the root ma for mother 1 1
However this might be, and whether the child acquires some
of Its early vocabulary hy a spontaneous process or whether all
Its words come to It from the outside, the manner In which the
first items of articulate speech are used IS the point which IS
really mteresting and relevant for us m thiS connection.
The earbest words-'IIJama, dada, or papa, expressions for
food, water, certain toys or ammals-are not simply Imitated
and used to describe, name, or identify. Like the prevIous non-
articulate expressions of emotion, these early words also come to
be used under the stress of painful situations or strong emotions,
when the child cries for rts parent or rejoices m her sight, when
it clamours for food or repeats with pleasure or excnement the
name of some favourite playthmg of Its surroundings. Here
the word becomes the significant reaction, adjusted to suuanon,
expressive of mner state and intelhgrble to the human milieu
This latter fact has another very Important set of consequences.
The human infant, helpless m Itself and unable to cope with the
difficulties and dangers of its early life, IS endowed with very
complete arrangements for care and assistance, resulting from the
mstmcnve attachment of the mother and, to a smaller extent, of
the father The child's action on the surrounding world IS done
through the parents, on whom the child acts agam by ItS appeal,
mamly its verbal appeal. When the child clamours for a person,
it calls and he appears before It. When It wants food or an object
or when It Wishes some uncomfortable thing or arrangement to
be removed, Its only means of action 18 to clamour, and a very
efficient means of action this proves to the child.
To the child, words are therefore not only means of expression
but efficient modes of action. The name of a person uttered aloud
in a piteous voice possesses the power of matenabzmg this person.
Food has to be called for and It appears-m the majority of cases.
Thus mfannle experience must leave on the child's mind the
deep impression that a name has the power over the person or
thmg which It sigrufies.
1 The correspondence between early natural sounds and the nearest
kmshlp terms IS well known (d Westermarck, HJstory of Human
Mamage, Vol I, pp 242-245) Here I suggest somethmg more
namely that the natural emotional tone of one of these sounds, ma,
and Its sagmficance for the mother, cause her appeara.nce and thus
by a natural process form the meaning of the mama type of words
The usual opimon IS that meamng IS grven to them artIfiCIally by
adults .. The tenns which have been denved fro~ the babbl~ of
Infants have, of course, been selected, and the use of them has been
fixed, by grown-up persons." (Westermarck, lac cu , p. 245 )
 SUPPLEMENT I 32 I
We find thus that an arrangement brologically essential to the
human race makes the early articulated words sent forth by
children produce the very effect which these words mean. Words
are to a child active forces, they give him an essential hold on
reality, they provide him with the only effective means of moving,
attracting and repulsmg outer things and of producing changes
m all that IS relevant. This of course IS not the statement of a
child's conscious views about language, but It IS the attitude
implied m the child's behaviour.
Following the manner 10 which speech IS used into the
later stage of childhood, we find agam that everythmg reinforces
this pragmatic relation to meaning In all the child's expenence,
words mean, 10 so far as they act and not m so far as they make the
child understand or apperceive HIS JOy 10 usmg words and 10
expressmg Itself m frequent repetition, or m playing about With
8 word, IS relevant 10 so far as It reveals the active nature of early
lmguisuc use And It would be mcorrect to say that such a
playful use of words IS ' meamngless' It IS certainly deprived of
any intellectual purpose, but possesses always an emononal value,
and It IS one of the child's favourite actions, m which he approaches
this or that person or object of his surroundmgs When a child
greets the approachmg person or animal, Item of food or toy,
With a volley of the repeated name, he estabhshes a lmk of hkmg
or dishkmg between himself and that object. And all the time,
up to a fairly advanced age, the name of an object IS the first means
recurred to, m order to attract, to rnatenahze this thing.
If we transfer now this analysis to conditions of pnmitrve
mankind, It will be better not to indulge m essentially Imagmary
and therefore futile speculations about the begmmngs of speech,
but SImply to cast a glance at the normal uses of language as we
see them m empirical observations of savages. Returrung to the
above examples of a group of natives engaged m a practical
pursuit, we see them usmg technical words, names of Implements,
specific activities. A word, sigrufying an Important utensil, is
used m action, not to comment on ItS nature or reflect on Its
properties, but to make It appear, be handed over to the speaker,
or to direct another man to Its proper use. The meanmg of
the thing IS made up of experiences of ItS active uses and not of
intellectual contemplation. Thus, when a savage learns to under-
stand the meanmg of a word, thrs process IS not accomplished by
explanations, by a series of acts of apperception, but by learnmg
to handle It. A word means to a native the proper use of the thing
for which It stands, exactly as an Implement means somethmg
32 2 SUPPLEMENT I
when rt can be handled and means nothing when no active
experience of It IS at hand. Sirmlarly a verb, a word for an action,
receives Its rneanmg through an active particrpanon In this action
A word IS used when It can produce an action and not to describe
one, still less to translate thoughts. The word therefore has a
power of ItS own, It IS a means of brmgmg things about, it IS a
handle to acts and objects and not a defimnon of them.
Again, the same view of rneamng results from the active uses
of speech among ourselves, even among those of us, who, on
comparatively rare occasions, can use language 10 a scientific or
literary manner The innumerable superstrtions-e-the agnostic's
fear of blasphemy or at least reluctance to use It, the active dishke
of obscene language, the power of swearmg-s-all this shows that
In the normal use of words the bond between symbol and referent
IS more than a mere convention.
The ilhterate members of cmhzed communrnes treat and
regard words very much as savages do, that IS as being strongly
bound up WIth the reality of action. And the way m which they
value verbal knowledge--proverbs, sayings, and, nowadays, news
-as the only form of WIsdom, gives a definite character to this
implied attitude But here I encroach on a field amply Illustrated
and analysed in this book
Indeed, on anyone who has read the bnlhant chapters of Ogden
and Richards and grasped the main trend of their argument, It
Will have dawned before now that all the argument of this Section
is a sort of foot-note to their fundamental contention that the
prmutrve, magical attitude towards words IS responsible for a good
deal 10 the general use and abuse of language, more especially In
philosophical speculation. By the rich material CIted 10 Chapter
11, and in Word MagIC, by the examples of Chapters VII, VIII,
and IX, and by much of what IS mcidentally said, we are made to
realize how deeply rooted IS the belief that a word has some power
over a thmg, that It parncipates of the nature of the thing, that
It IS akin or even idenncal In ItS contained • meamng ' WIth the
thing or WIth Its prototype
But whence IS this magical attitude denved? Here the study
of the early stages of speech steps m helpfully and the Ethno-
grapher can make himself useful to the Philosopher of Language
In studying the mfannle formation of meaning and the savage
or rlhterate meaning, we found this very magical attitude towards
words. The word gives power, allows one to exercise an Influence
over an object or an action The mearung of a word anses out
of farmlianty, out of ability to use, out of the faculty of direct
 SUPPLEMENT I
clamouring as with the mfant, or practically directing as with
primmve man. A word ISused always m direct active conjunction
with the reality It means. The word acts on the thing and the
thmg releases the word In the human mmd. This Indeed is
nothing more or less than the essence of the theory which under-
hes the use of verbal magic. And this theory we find based on
real psychological experiences in pnrmtrve forms of speech
Before the earliest philosophical speculation sets in, there
emerges the practice and theory of magic, and In this, man's
natural attitude towards words becomes fixed and for-nulated by
a special lore and tradmon It is through the study of actual
spells and verbal magic as well as by the analysis of savage ideas
on magic that we can best understand this developed traditional
view of the secret power of appropriate words on certain things.
Briefly It may be said that such study Simply confirms our theor-
etical analysis of this section. In magical formule we find a
preponderance of words with high emotional tension, of technical
terms, of strong Imperatives, of verbs expressmg hope, success,
achievement. So much must suffice here and the reader is referred
for more data to Chapter 11 of thts book, and to the chapters on
'Magic' and' The Power of Words in Magic" in the above
quoted work of rmne 1
It may be of mterest to interpret the results of our analysis of
the earliest stages of meanmg on the diagram in which the
relations between Symbol, Act of Thought, and Referent are
represented by a triangle at the begmnmg of Chapter I of this
book. This diagram represents very adequately the said relatione
m the developed uses of speech It IS characteristic In this tri-
angle that the base. indicated by a dotted line, represents the
imputed relation which obtains between a Symbol and the thmg
It refers to, ItS Referent as the Authors name It. In developed
functions of speech, such as are, or at least should be, used m
philosophical speculation or sciennfic language (and It IS chiefly
With these functions that the Authors are concerned in thrs
book) the gulf of Meanmg, as It could be called, IS bndged over
only by the Act of Thought-the bent hne of the two shoulders
of the triangle
Let us try to represent by analogous diagrams the earlier stageR
of Meaning. At the first stage, when the utterance is a mere
sound-reaction, expressive, sigmficant and correlated WIth the
srtuation, but not mvolvmg any act of thought, the tnangle is
reduced to ItS base, which stands for a real connection-that
1 A,gonauts of the Western PQ(;Jfi~
 SUPPLEMENT I
between SOUND-REACTION and SITUATION. The
first cannot yet be termed a Symbol nor the latter a Referent.
FIRST STAGE The begmnmgs of articulate
speech, when, parallel With Its
SOUND- (eonnected SITU-
appearance Referents begin to
REACTION dU'BetlY WIth) ATION emerge out of the Situation, are
SECOND STAGE still to be represented by a
single solid line of actual cor-
relation (second stage). The
ACTIVE (eon'elated REFER- sound IS not a real symbol yet,
SOUND WIth) ENT for It is not used detached from
(Semi-arncalated
or articulated) its Referent.
THIRD STAGE
(A) (B)
Speech ID ACtIOD. NarratJve Speech
ACT OF IMAGERY

ACTIVE (Ulied to RRRR- SYMBOL (Indlred REFERENT

SYMBOL hantlle) ENT relation)
(C)
Language of RItual Magic
RITUAL ACT
(blJlied 011 tradItional belIef).

SYMBOL (MystIcally REFERENT

assumed relatIon)
 SUPPLEMENT I 325
In the third stage we have to distmguish between the three
fundamental uses of language, active, narrative and ritual. Each
of them IS made sufficiently clear by the diagram here given,
which must be taken In conjunction With our previous analysis.
The final stage of developed language is represented by the tri-
angle of Ogden and Richards, and Its genetic relation to its
humble predecessors may explain some of ItS anatomy. First
of all : the possibrhty of extending the Authors' diagram or push-
ing It backwards Into pnmitrve speech-uses affords an additional
proof of its valrdity and adequacy. Further the sohd nature of
almost all the bases of our triangles explams why the dotted line
in the final figure shows such tenacity and why it IS capable of so
much mischief, The extreme vitahty of the magical attitude to
words IS explained In our foot-note to this, tbe theory of the book,
not only by a reference to the pnrmtrve uses of language by
savage and no doubt by prehistonc man, but also by its
perpetual confirmation in mfantile uses of language and ID the
very mechanism by which meaning IS acquired In every in-
dividual hfe.
Some other corollaries might be drawn from our theory of
pnmitrve meaning. Thus we might find In it an addmonal
confirmation of the Authors' analysis of definition. It is clear
that they are nght when they maintain that • verbal ' and • real '
definmon must In the end come to the same thing, and that the
making of this artificial distinction Into a fundamental one has
created a false problem Meaning; as we have seen, does not
come to Primitive Man from contemplation of things, or analysis
of occurrences, but In practical and active acquaintance With
relevant srtuanons. The real knowledge of a word comes through
the practice of appropriately usmg It Within a certain situation.
The word, hke any man-made Implement, becomes significant
only after It has been used and properly used under all sorts of
condmons, Thus, there can be no defimnon of a word Without
the reality which It means being present. And agam, SIDce a
Significant symbol IS necessary for man to Isolate and grasp an
Item of realIty, there IS no definmg of a thing Without defining a
word at the same time. Defimnon In ItS most primitive and
fundamental form IS nothing but a sound-reaction, or an articulate
word JOined to some relevant aspect of a situation by means of an
appropriate human action. This definition of definition does not,
of course, refer to the same type of hnguisnc use as the one dis-
cussed by the Authors of this book. It IS Interesting to see,
however, that their conclusions, which are arrived at by the study
326 SUPPLEMENT I
of higher types of speech, hold good in the domain of primitive
uses of words.
VI
In the course of this essay I have tried to narrow down the
scope of each hnguisnc problem discussed. At first It was the
pnnciple that the study of language needs an ethnographic back-
ground of general culture, that hnguisncs must be a section,
Indeed the most Important one, of a general science of culture
Then an attempt was made to show that this general conclusion
leads us to certain more defimte views about the nature of lan-
guage, in which we conceived human speech as a mode of action,
rather than as a countersign of thought We proceeded then to a
discussion of the ongins and early forms of Meamng, as It must
have been experienced by Prirmtrve Man This gave us the
explanation and showed us the roots of the magical attitude of
man to words Thus we moved by a senes of conclusions, each
more concrete and defimte than the prevIous one.
I Wish now to touch upon one more problem, still more definite
and concrete than the others, that namely of the structure of
Language.
Every human tongue has a defimte structure of ItS own We
have types of Isolating, agglutmatrve, polysynthenc, mcorporanng
and mflecnonal languages, In every one of them, the means of
Imguisnc action and expression can be brought under certain
rules, classified according to certain categories. This body of
structural rules With their exceptions and Irregularities, the various
classes Into which the elements of the language can be ranged, IS
what we call • the grammatical structure ' of a language
Language IS usually, though, as we have seen, Incorrectly,
regarded as • the expression of thought by means of Speech
Sounds.' The obvious Idea, therefore, IS that hnguisnc structure
IS the result of the rules of human thought, that • every gram-
matical category Is-or ought to be-the expression of some
logical category.' But It does not require much mental effort
to realize that to hope for such perfect conjugal harmony between
Language and Logic, IS far too opnmisnc : that In actuality
• they often diverge from one another,' In fact that they are con-
stantly at loggerheads and that Language often Ill-treats Logic,
till It IS deserted by her 1
1 I quote from H Sweet (Introductzon to the History of Language).
because this author IS one of the cleverest thinkers on language Yet
even he sees no alternative but Rule of Logic or Anarchy In language.
 SUPPLEMENT I
Thus we are faced by a dilemma' erther the grammatical
categories are derived from the laws of thought, and we are at a
loss to explain why the two are so ill adapted to each other. Why,
if Language has grown up m the services of Thought, has It been
so little influenced or Impressed by Its pattern? Or we can, to
escape these difficulties, run on to the other horn of the dilemma
as most grammarians do. They haughtily turn away from the sour
grapes of any deeper probing or philosophy of Language, and
armply affirm that Grammar rules m Its own nght, by a sort
of drvine grace, no doubt; that the empire of Grammar must
continue in Its splendid isolation, as a power hostde to Thought,
order, system and common sense.
Both Views-the one appealing to Logic for help and the
other mdicatmg an autonomous rule for Grammar-are equally
in disagreement with facts and to be rejected It IS nothing
short of absurd to assume, WIth the rsgid grammarian, that
grammar has grown up as a sort of wild weed of human faculties
for no purpose whatever except ItS own existence The spon-
taneous generation of meamngless monstrosities in the bram of
Man Will not be easily admitted by psychology-unless of course
the bram IS that of a ngid scientific speciahst And, general prm-
ciples or predilecnons apart, all human languages show, m sprte
of great divergences, a certain fundamental agreement m struc-
ture and means of grammatical expression It would be both
preposterous and mtellectually pusdlammous to give up at the
outset any search for deeper forces which must have produced
these common, umversally human features of Language. In
our Theory of Meanmg, we have seen that Language serves for
defimte purposes, that It functions as an instrument used for
and adapted to a definite aun ThIS adaptation, this correlation
between language and the uses to which It IS put, has left Its
traces m Jmguisnc structure. But of course It IS clear that we
must not look m the domain of logical thmkmg and philosophical
speculatron for light on the aim and purposes of early human
speech, and so this purely logical view of language IS as useless
as the purely grammancal one.
Real categories there are, on which the grammatIcal'dlVlsIons
are based and moulded. But these real categories are not denved
from any pnrmtrve philosophrc system, built up by contemplanon
of the surrounding world and by crude speculatrons, such as
have been imputed to primitive man by certain anthropologists.
Language m Its structure mirrors the real categones denved from
practical attitudes of the child and of pnminve or natural man
 SUPPLEMENT I
to the surrounding world. The grammatical categories with all
their pecuharities, exceptions, and refractory msubordinanon
to rule, are the reflection of the makeshift, unsystematic, practical
outlook Imposed by man's struggle for existence m the widest
sense of this word. It would be futile to hope that we might
be able to reconstruct exactly this pragmatic world vision of the
pnrmtive, the savage or the child, or to trace m detail its corre-
lation to grammar. But a broad outline and a general correspond-
ence can be found ; and the reahzation of thrs frees us anyhow
from logical shackles and grammatical barrenness.
Of course the more highly developed a language is and the
longer Its evolutional history, the more structural strata It will
embody. The several stages of culture-savage, barbarous,
semi-civihzed, and crvihzed : the various types of use-prag-
matic, narrative, ntual, scholastic, theological-i-wrll each have
left Its mark. And even the final, powerful, but by no means
omnipotent punfication by scientific use, will m no way be able
to obhterate the previous rmpnnts, The various structural
pecuhannes of a modern, crvihzed language carry, as shown by
Ogden and Richards, an enormous dead weight of archaic use,
of magical superstition and of mystical vagueness.
If our theory IS right, the fundamental outhnes of grammar are
due mainly to the inost primitive uses of language For these
preside over the birth and over the most plastic stages of lm-
guisnc development, and leave the strongest mark. The cate-
gones derived from the primitive use Will also be Identical for
all human languages, m spite of the many superficial diversities.
For man's essential nature IS Identical and the primitive uses of
language are the same Not only that, but we have seen that the
pragmatic function of language IS carried on mto ItS highest
stages, especially through mfannle use and through a backshdmg
of adults into unsophisticated modes of thmkmg and speaking.
Language IS little Influenced by thought, but Thought, on the
contrary, having to borrow from action ItS tool-that IS, language
-IS largely Influenced thereby. To sum up, we can say that the
fundamental grammatical categories, umversal to a1l human
languages, can be understood only With reference to the prag-
matic Weltanschauung of primitive man, and that, through the
use of Language, the barbarous pnnutrve categories must have
deeply Influenced the later plulosoplnes of mankind
This must be exemplified by a detailed analysis of one at
least of the concrete problems of grammar; and I shall choose
for a bnef discussion the problem of the Parts of Speech. We
 SUPPLEMENT I
must turn, therefore, to a stage m the development of the m-
drvrdual or of mankmd when the human bemg IS not interested m
reflection or speculation, when he does not classify phenomena
for purposes of knowledge but only m so far as they enter into
his direct deahngs with his conditions of existence The child,
the pnmrtrve man, or the unsophisticated individual has to use
Language as an mdispensable means of mfluencmg his social
surroundmgs In all this, a very definite attitude develops, a
manner of takmg notice of certain Items of reahty, of smghng
them out and connectmg them-an attitude not framed m any
system of thought, but expressed In behaviour and, m the case
of pnrmtrve commumties, embodied m the ensemble of cultural
achievements among which Language looms first and foremost.
Let us begin with the relation of a child to Its surroundmgs.
At the earliest stage, its actions and behaviour are governed by the
wants of the orgamsm It IS moved by hunger and thirst, desire
for warmth and a certain c1eanlmess, proper conditions for rest
and sleep, a due amount of freedom for movement, and last, not
least, the need of human compamonship, and of handling by
adults. At a very early stage the child reacts to general situanons
only, and hardly even singles out the nearest persons who minister
to Its comfort and supply It with food. But this does not last
long Even within the first couple of weeks, some phenomena,
some units begin to stand out from the general surroundmgs
Human faces are of special mterest-the child smdes back and
utters sounds of pleasure. The mother or the nurse IS gradually
recogmzed, as even before that, are objects or vehicles of food.
Undoubtedly the strongest emononal appeal is exercised over
the child by the personahty of Its mother, and these articles or
vehicles of food. Anyone Imbued With Freudian prmciples
nught feel Inclined to look here for a direct connection. In the
young of man, as In those of any Mammalian specres, the mfant
associates With Its mother all Its emotions about food Primarily
she IS for him a vessel of nourishment If therefore nutrmon is
glVen by any other means--and It must be remembered that
savage mfants are fed With chewed vegetable food almost from
birth, as well as by the breast-the tender feelmgs by which an
mfant responds to maternal cares are probably extended to other
numstrations of food. When one sees the lovmg attitude of a
modern bottle-fed baby to Its bottle, the tender caresses and fond
smdes which It bestows on It, the identity of response to artificial
and natural food-conveyers seems to Imply an Identical mental
attitude of the infant. If thiS be so, we gain an Insight mto a
330 SUPPLEMENT I
very early process of persomficanon of objects, by which relevant
and Important things of the surroundmgs release the same
emotional response as do the revelant persons. However true
may be tlns suggestion of a direct idennficanon, there IS no doubt
that a great snmlanty exists between the early attitude towards the
nearest persons and objects which satisfy the needs of nutrition.
When the child begins to handle things, play With objects
of Its surroundings, an interesting feature can be observed m Its
behaviour, also assocrated with the fundamental nutntrve tend-
ency of an infant. It tnes to put everything Into its mouth
Hence the child pulls, tnes to bend and ply soft or plastic objects,
Or It tnes to detach parts of rigid ones. Very soon Isolated,
detachable things become of much greater interest and value than
such as cannot be handled m their entirety. As the child grows
up and can move thmgs more freely, this tendency to Isolate,
to Single out physically, develops further. It lies at the bottom of
the well-known destructive tendency of children. This IS mter-
estmg, m thrs connection, for it shows how one mental faculty of
smghng outrelev antfactorsof the surroundmgs-cperaons.nutnnve
objects, things-has ItS parallel m the bodily behaviour of the
child Here again, In studying this detail of behaviour, we find a
confirmation of our pragmatic view of early mental development.
There can also be found a tendency to persomfy objects of
special Interest By the term • persomfication ' I do not mean here
any theory or view of the child's own. I mean, as In the case of
food Items, that we can observe In him a type of behaviour which
does not discrimmate essentially between persons and objects
The child likes and dislikes some of his playthings, gets mgry
With them should they become unwieldy; he hugs, kisses and
shows signs of attachment towards them Persons, no doubt,
stand out first In nrne and foremost In Importance But even
from this It results that the relation to them IS a sort of pattern
for the child's attitude towards thmgs
Another Important point IS the great interest in animals. From
my own observation, I can affirm that children a few months
old, who did not take any prolonged Interest in mammate things,
would follow a bud in rts movements for some time. It was also
one of the first words which a child would understand; that IS,
it would look for the bird when It was named. The interest
shown In animals at later stages of childhood IS well known
In this connection, It is of Importance to us, because an animal
and especially a bud with Its spontaneous movements, with ItS
ease of detachment from surroundings, With Its unquestionable
 SUPPLEMENT I 33I
reminiscence of persons, is just such an object as would arouse
the cluld's mterest, according to our theory.

Analysing the present-day savage m his relation to the sur-

roundings, we find a clear parallel to the attitude Just described.
The outer world interests him m so far as it Yields thmgs useful.
Utility here of course must be understood in its broadest sense,
mcluding not only what man can consume as food, use for
shelter and Implement, but all that stimulates hrs acnvities m
play, ritual, war, or artistic production
All such significant things stand out for the savage as isolated,
detached units against an undifferentiated background. When
mov1Og With savages through any natural rmheu-e-sarlmg on
the sea, walking on a beach or through the Jungle, or glancing
across the starht sky-I was often Impressed by their tendency
to Isolate the few objects Important to them, and to treat the rest
as mere background. In a forest, a plant or tree would strike me,
but on mquiry I would be mformed-s-' Oh, that IS Just" bush." ,
An insect or bird which plays no part m the tradinon or the larder
would be dismissed' Mauna toala '-' merely a flying animal.'
But n,on the contrary, the object happened to be useful m one way
or another, It would be named , detailed reference to Its uses and
properties would be given, and the thmg thus would be dis-
tmctly mdividuahzed. The same would happen With regard to
stars, landscape features, mmerals, fishes and shells. Everywhere
there IS the tendency to Isolate that which stands m some con-
necnon, tradrtional, ritual, useful to man, and to bundle all the
rest into one mdiscnmmate heap But even wuhm this tendency
there IS visibly a preference for Isolated small, easily handled
objects. Their interest m animals IS relatively greater than m
plants; greater m shells than m rmnerals, m flymg insects than
m crawlmg ones. That which IS easily detached IS preferred.
In the landscape, the small details are often named and treated
m tradition, and they arouse interest, while big stretches of land
remain Without name and mdivrduahty.
The great interest taken by pnmrtrve man in animals forms a
curious parallel to the cluld's attitude; and the psychological
reasons of both are, I think, similar. In all mamfestanons of
Totemism, Zoolatry, and of the varIOUS animal influences m
pnmitive folk-lore, behef and ntual, the mterest of the savage m
animals finds ItS expreSSIOn.
Now let us restate the nature of this general category m which
pnmrtive mind places persons, animals and thmgs, This rough,
332 SUPPLEMENT I
uncouth category IS not defined, but strongly felt and well
expressed In human behaviour It IS constructed on selective
cntena of biological unhty as well as further psychological and
social uses and values. The prominent position taken up m It by
persons colours It m such a way that thmgs and animals enter
mto It with a personified character. All Items of thiS category are
also mdividuahsed, Isolated, and treated as umts Out of an
undifferentiated background, the practical Weltansch,lUung of
prirrnnve man Isolates a category of persons and personified
things It IS clear at once that this category roughly corresponds
to that of substance-s-especrally to the Anstotehan ousta But,
of course, It owes nothmg whatever to any philosophical specu-
lanon, early or late. It IS the rough, uncouth matrix out of which
the vanous conceptions of substance could be evolved. It might
be called crude substance, or protousta for those who prefer learned
sounds to simple ones
As we have seen, parallel WIth the child's early mental attitudes,
and presumably also WIth those of mall m the first stages of hIS
development, there comes the evolution of sigmficant, articulate
sound The category of Cl ude substance so prerrunent 10 the
early mental outlook requires and receives articulate sounds to
signify Its various Items The class of words used for nammg
persons and personified things forms a pnmmve grammatical
category of noun-substantives Thus, this part of speech IS seen
to be rooted ID active modes of behaviour and 10 active uses of
speech, observable m child and m savage, and assumable m pnrru-
trve man.
Let us next treat bnefly the second Important class of words-
the action-words or verbs The underlymg real category appears
later m the child's mental outlook, and It IS less preponderant 111
that of the savage. To this corresponds the fact that the gram-
matical structure of verbs IS less developed m savage tongues
Indeed, human action centres round objects The child IS and has
to be aware of the food or of the rmrustermg person before It can
or need disentangle the act from the agent or become aware of Its
own acts. The bodily states of a child also stand out much less
from the situation than the things which enter mto the latter
Thus only at a subsequent stage of the child's development can
we see that It disentangles the changes m Its surroundmgs from
the objects which change This happens at a stage when arti-
culate sounds have begun to be used by the mfant. Acuons such
as eating, drinkmg, resting, walkmg ; states of the body, such as
sleep, hunger, rest; moods, such as like and dislike begm to be
 SUPPLEMENT I 333
expressed Of this real category of action, state and mood, we
can say that It lends Itself to command as well as to mdicanon or
description, that It IS associated with the element of change, that
IS, time, and that It stands in a specially close connection with the
persons of the speaker and hearer. In the outlook of savages, the
same characters could be noticed m this category; great interest
m all changes refernng to the human being, In phases and types
of human action, m states of human body and moods. This
bnef mdication allows us to state that at the pnmmve stages of
human speech there must have existed a real category mto which
entered all Items of change capable of temporal modificanon,
beanng the character of human mood and of human will, and
bound up With the personal action of man.
When we look at the class of words used to denote items of
this real category, we find a close correspondence between cate-
gory and part of speech. The action-word, or verb, IS capable
m all languages of grammatical modrfications expressing temporal
relation, moods or modes of utterance, and the verb IS also closely
aSSOC18ted with pronouns, a class of words which corresponds
to another real category.
A few words must be said about the pronouns. What is the
real category of pnmrtrve human behaviour and primitrve speech
habits corresponding to that small but extremely Vital class of
words? Speech, as we saw, is one of the pnncipal modes of
human action, hence the actor In speech, the speaker, stands to
the foreground of the pragmatic vision of the world. Aga1O, as
Speech IS associated With concerted behaviour, the speaker has
constantly to refer to hearer or hearers. Thus, the speaker and
hearer occupy, so to speak, the two pnncipal corner-sites m the
perspective of hnguistic approach. There comes then a very
hmrted, special class of word corresponding to a real category,
constantly m use, easily associable With action-words, but similar
in its grammatical nature to nouns-the part of speech called
pronoun.uncludmg a few words only, but constantly m use; as
a rule short, easily manageable words, appearing m mtimate
association with the verb, but funcnonmg almost as nouns.
This part of speech, It IS obVIOUS, corresponds closely to Its real
category. The correspondence could be followed mto many
more mterestmg detads-the special asymmetric posrtion of the
third pronommal person, the problem of genders and classifi-
catory particles, shown especially m the third person.'
1 Cf the writer's article on • Classificatory Particles' In the BulletIn
of Onental StudIes, Vol 11
334 SUPPLEMENT I
One point, however, refernng to a common characteristic of
nouns and pronouns and dealing Withthe declension of the various
cases of the noun, must still be touched upon The real category
of thie latter ISdenved from personified umts of the surroundmgs
In the child, the first attitude towards Items of this category IS
drscnmrnanon, based on biologrcal unhty and on pleasure m
perceiving them The infant halls them m sigmficant sounds,
or names them With articulate words on their appearance, and
calls for them m need. Thus these words, the nouns, are sub-
rmtted to a definite use, that of naming and appeal. To this
there corresponds a subclass of noun-substantives which could
be called the appellatrve case, and which IS Similar to some uses
of the vocauve and nornmatrve m the Indo-European declension.
In the more developed uses of Language, this becomes a more
efficient adjunct of action The thing-word comes into a nearer
association with the action-word Persons are named, by their
names or by pronommal designanons 10 associanon Withwhat they
do: I I go,' 'thou comest,' 'so-and-so drinks,' 'anunal runs,'
etc. The name of a person or personified thing IS thus used 10
a different manner, WIth a different mode of meanmg as an actor,
or techmcally as the subject of action. This IS the use correspond-
ing to the subjective case in which a noun is always put as the
subject of a predication. It may be said that to this case in nouns
corresponds a class of pronouns, the personal pronouns, I, thou, he.
ActJon IS carried out With relation to certain objects Things
and persons are handled. Their names, when associated With an
action-word in that manner, stand in the objective case, and
pronouns are used m a special form, VIZ., that called objective
or reflexive.
Since language IS rooted ID man's praetJcal rnterest m thmgs
and persons there IS another relanonship of fundamental Import-
ance, that namely m which a person can lay a definite claim to
relation With or possessron of, another person or thmg. With
regard to the surroundings nearest people, there are the ties of
kinship and friendship With regard to things, there comes the
economic sentiment of possession. The relation of two nouns,
standing to each other as a thing or person related to or possessed
by another thing or person, qln be called the gemtrval or pos-
sessive relation ; and It IS found as a distinct mode of connecting
two nouns m all human languages. To this corresponds also the
genrtrve case of European languages in Its most charactenstic
uses. In pronouns agam, there is a special class of possessive
pronouns which expresses relationship.
 SUPPLEMENT I 335
Finally, one mode of action towards outer things or people
stands out from the others, namely that determined by
spatial conditions. WIthout gomg more into detail on this
subject, I suggest that a definite subclass of substantrval uses
can be assumed in all languages-that corresponding to a pre-
positional case.
There are still obviously further categories resulting from
man's utilitanan attitude, those of the attributes or qualities of a
thing, charactensncs of an action, relanons between things,
relations between srtuations, and It would be possible to show
that adjective, adverb, preposinon, conjunction are based on
these real categories. One could proceed also, snll dealing on
the one hand WIth the Semantic Matter-to-be-expressed and on
the other WIth structural features of Language, to explain these
latter by a reference to real facts of primitrve human nature.
ThIS short sketch, however, is sufficient to mdicate the method
and the argument, by which such a genetic, primmve Semantics
could be estabhshed-a science which, referring to the pnrmtive
attitude of Man towards Reality, would show what is the real
nature of grammatical categories. The results of such primitrve
SemantIcs even 10 so far as we have mdicated them, stand, I
think, in close connection with the results of Ogden and Richards.
Their contention is that a false attitude towards Language and ItS
functions IS one of the mam obstacles in the advance of philosoplu-
cal thought and scientific mvestigation, and in the ever-growing
practical uses of language 10 the press, pamphlet and novel.
Now in this and the previous section, I have tried to show that
such a crude and unsound attitude towards Language and Mean-
10g must exist, I have tried to demonstrate how it has arisen
and why It had to persist; and I try to trace It even into details of
grammancal structure.
There IS one more thing to add. Through later processes of
lmguisnc use and of thinking, there took place an mdiscrimmate
and wholesale shIfting of roots and meanings from one grammat-
real category to another. For according to our view of prirmtrve
Semantics, each significant root originally must have had Its place,
and one place only. m Its proper verbal category. Thus, the roots
meaning' man,' , animal,' , tree,' • stone,' , water,' are essentially
nommal roots. The meanings' sleep," eat,' • go,' 'come,' • fall,'
are verbal. But as language and thought develop, the constant
acnon of metaphor, of generahzatIon, analogy and abstraction,
and of sirmlar hnguistic uses build up links between the cate-
gones and obhterate the boundary hnes, thus allowing words and
336 SUPPLEMENT I
roots to move freely over the whole field of Language. In analytic
languages, hke Chinese and English, this ubiquitous nature of
roots is most eonsprcuous, but it can- be found even In very prinn-
tive languages.
Now Mr Ogden and Mr Richards have brought out in a
most convincmg manner the extreme persistence of the old
realist fallacy that a word vouches for, or contains, the rea1Jty
of its own meanmg. A peep behind the scenes of pnminve
root-formation, of the reahty of pnmitrve categones and of their
subsequent, InsidIOUS collapse, adds an Important document to"
the Authors' VIews. The migration of roots into Improper places
has given to the imagmary reahty of hypostanzed meaning a
special sohdrty of Its own. For, since early experience warrants
the substantival existence of anything found within the category
of Crude Substance or Protousia, and subsequent linguistic
shlfts introduce there such roots as Cgoing,' Crest,' Cmotion,'
etc., the obVIOUS inference is that such abstract entities or ideas
hve m a real world of their own Such harmless adjectives as
Cgood' or Cbad,' expressmg the savage's half-arumal sansfacnon
or drssatisfaction ID a Situation, subsequently intrude into the
enclosure reserved for the clumsy, rough-hewn blocks of primitive
substance, are sublimated into I Goodness' and CBadness' and
create whole theological worlds, and systems of Thought and
Religion, It must, of course, be remembered that the theory of
Ogden and Richards, and the View here expressed, mamtam
most emphatically that Language, and all Linguisnc processes
denve their power only from real processes taking place In man's
relation to his surroundings I have merely touched upon the
question of lmguistic sluftmgs, and it would be necessary to
account for them by the psychological and sociological processes
of barbarous and semi-civilized commumties; exactly as we
accounted for Prmutive Lmguistics by analysmg the mind of
Pnmrtrve Man-and as the Authors of this book account for the
Virtues and imperfections of the present-day language by their
masterly analysis of the human mind in general.