Читать книгу Elements of Folk Psychology - Wilhelm Max Wundt - Страница 15

From the point of view just developed, the investigation of the grammatical forms of primitive language is of particular importance for the psychology of primitive man. True, as has already been remarked, the languages of the most primitive tribes have not been preserved to us in their original form. And yet it is in this very realm of grammatical forms, far more even than in that of sound pictures and onomatopoetic words, that the Soudan languages possess characteristics which mark them as the expression of processes of thought that have remained on a relatively primitive level. This is indicated primarily by the fact that these languages lack what we would call grammatical categories. As regards this point, Westermann's grammar of the Ewe language is in entire agreement with the much earlier results which Steinthal reached in his investigation of the Manda language, which is also of the Soudan region. These languages consist of monosyllabic words which follow one another in direct succession without any intermediate inflectional elements to modify their meaning. Philologists usually call such languages 'root-languages,' because a sound complex that carries the essential meaning of a word, apart from all modifying elements, is called by their science a verbal root. In the Latin word fero, fer, meaning 'to bear,' is the root from which all modifications of the verb ferre (to carry) are formed by means of suffixal elements. If, therefore, a language consists of sound complexes having the nature of roots, it is called a root-language. As a matter of fact, however, the languages under discussion consist purely of detached, monosyllabic words; the conception 'root,' which itself represents the product of a grammatical analysis of our flectional languages, may only improperly be applied to them. Such a language is composed of detached monosyllabic words, each of which has a meaning, yet none of which falls under any particular grammatical category. One and the same monosyllabic word may denote an object, an act, or a quality, just as in gesture-language the gesture of striking may denote the verb 'to strike' and also the noun 'blow.' From this it is evident to what extent the expressions 'root' and 'root-language' carry over into this primitive language a grammatical abstraction which is entirely inappropriate in case they suggest the image of a root. This image originated among grammarians at a time when the view was current that, just as the stem and branches of a plant grow out of its root, so also in the development of a language does a word always arise out of a group of either simple or composite sounds that embody the main idea. But the component parts of a language are certainly not roots in this sense; every simple monosyllabic word combines with others, and from this combination there result, in part, modifications in meaning, and, in part, sentences. Language, thus, does not develop by sprouting and growing, but by agglomeration and agglutination. Now, the Soudan languages are characterized by the fact that they possess very few such fixed combinations in which the individual component parts have lost their independence. In this respect, accordingly, they resemble gesture-language. The latter also is unfamiliar with grammatical categories in so far as these apply to the words themselves; the very same signs denote objects, actions, and qualities—indeed, generally even that for which in our language we employ particles. This agreement with gesture-language is brought home to us most strikingly if we consider the words which the primitive spoken languages employ for newly formed ideas—such, for instance, as refer to previously unknown objects of culture. Here it appears that the speaker always forms the new conception by combining into a series those ideas with which he is more familiar. When schools were introduced into Togo, for example, and a word for 'slate-pencil' became necessary, the Togo negroes called it 'stone scratch something'—that is, a stone with which we scratch something. Similarly 'kitchen,' an arrangement unknown to these tribes, was referred to as 'place cook something'; 'nail,' as 'iron head broad.' The single word always stands for a sensibly perceptual object, and the new conception is formed, not, as epistemologists commonly suppose, by means of a comparison of various objects, but by arranging in sequence those perceptual ideas whose combined characteristics constitute the conception. The same is true with regard to the expressions for such thought relations as are variously indicated in our language by the inflections of substantive, adjective, and verb. The Soudan languages make no unambiguous distinction between noun and verb. Much less are the cases of the substantive, or the moods and tenses of the verb, distinguished; to express these distinctions, separate words are always used. Thus, 'the house of the king' is rendered as 'house belong king.' The conception of case is here represented by an independent perception that crowds in between the two ideas which it couples together. The other cases are, as a rule, not expressed at all, but are implied in the connection. Similarly, verbs possess no future tense to denote future time. Here also a separate word is introduced, one that may be rendered by 'come.' 'I go come' means 'I shall go'; or, to mention the preterit, 'I go earlier' means 'I went.' Past time, however, may also be expressed by the immediate repetition of the word, a sensibly perceptual sign, as it were, that the action is completed. When the Togo negro says 'I eat,' this means 'I am on the point of eating'; when he says 'I eat eat,' it means 'I have eaten.'

But ideas of such acts and conditions as are in themselves of a perceptual nature are also occasionally expressed by combining several elements which are obtained by discriminating the separate parts of a perceptual image. The idea to bring, for example, is expressed by the Togo negro as 'take, go, give.' In bringing something to some one, one must first take it, then go to him and give it to him. It therefore happens that the word 'go,' in particular, is frequently added even where we find no necessity for especially emphasizing the act of going. Thus, the Togo negro would very probably express the sentence, 'The angry teacher strikes the child,' in the following way: 'Man-school-angry-go-strike-child.' This is the succession that directly presents itself to one who thinks in pictures, and it therefore finds expression in language. Whenever conceptions require a considerable number of images in order to be made picturable, combinations that are equivalent to entire sentences may result in a similar manner. Thus, the Togo negro expresses the concept 'west' by the words 'sun-sit-place'—that is, the place where the sun sits down. He thinks of the sun as a personal being who, after completing his journey, here takes a seat.

These illustrations may suffice to indicate the simplicity and at the same time the complexity of such a language. It is simple, in that it lacks almost all grammatical distinctions; it is complicated, because, in its constant reliance on sensibly perceptual images, it analyses our concepts into numerous elements. This is true not merely of abstract concepts, which these languages, as a rule, do not possess, but even of concrete empirical concepts. We need only refer to the verb 'to bring,' reduced to the form of three verbs, or the concept 'west,' for whose expression there is required not only the sun and the location which we must give it but also its act of seating itself. In all of these traits, then, primitive language is absolutely at one with gesture-language.

The same is true of the syntax of the two kinds of language. This also is no more irregular and accidental in the Soudan language than it is in gesture-language. As a rule, indeed, it is stricter than the syntax of our languages, for in the latter inflection makes possible a certain variation in the arrangement of words within a sentence according to the particular shade of meaning desired. In primitive language, the arrangement is much more uniform, being governed absolutely and alone by the same law as prevails in gesture-language—namely, the arrangement of words in their perceptual order. Without exception, therefore, object precedes attribute, and substantive, adjective. Less constant, however, is the relation of verb and object, in the Ewe language; the verb generally precedes, but the object may come first; the verb, however, always follows the subject whose action it expresses. This perceptual character of primitive language appears most strikingly when we translate any thought that is at all complicated from a primitive language into our own, first in its general meaning, and then word for word. Take an illustration from the language of the Bushmen. The meaning would be substantially this: 'The Bushman was at first received kindly by the white man in order that he might be brought to herd his sheep; then the white man maltreated the Bushman; the latter ran away, whereupon the white man took another Bushman, who suffered the same experience,' The language of the Bushmen expresses this in the following way: 'Bushman-there-go, here-run-to-white man, white man-give-tobacco, Bushman-go-smoke, go-fill-tobacco-pouch, white man-give-meat-Bushman, Bushman-go-eat-meat, stand-up-go-home, go happily, go-sit-down, herd-sheep-white man, white man-go-strike Bushman, Bushman-cry-loud-pain, Bushman-go-run-away-white man, white man-run-after-Bushman, Bushman-then-another, this one-herd-sheep, Bushman-all-gone.' In this complaint of the man of nature against his oppressor, everything is concrete, perceptual. He does not say, The Bushman was at first kindly taken up by the white man, but, The white man gives him tobacco, he fills his pouch and smokes; the white man gives him meat, he eats this and is happy, etc. He does not say, The white man maltreats the Bushman, but, He strikes him, the Bushman cries with pain, etc. What we express in relatively abstract concepts is entirely reduced by him to separate perceptual images. His thought always attaches to individual objects. Moreover, just as primitive language has no specific means for expressing a verb, so also are change and action overshadowed in primitive thought by the concrete image. The thinking itself, therefore, may be called concrete. Primitive man sees the image with its separate parts; and, as he sees it, so he reproduces it in his language. It is for this very reason that he is unfamiliar with differences of grammatical categories and with abstract concepts. Sequence is still governed entirely by the pure association of ideas, whose order is determined by perception and by the recollection of that which has been experienced. The above narrative of the Bushman expresses no unitary thought, but image follows upon image in the order in which these appear to consciousness. Thus, the thinking of primitive man is almost exclusively associative. Of the more perfect form of combining concepts, the apperceptive, which unites the thoughts into a systematic whole, there are as yet only traces, such as occur in the combination of the separate memory images.

Many analogues to the formal characteristics of primitive thought revealed in these linguistic phenomena may be met in child-language. There is a wide divergence, however, with respect to the very element which has already disappeared, with the exception of slight traces, from the language of primitive peoples. I refer to the close correlation of sound and meaning. As regards this feature, child-language is much more similar to gesture-language than is possible in the case of forms of speech that have undergone a long historical development. For, child-language, like gesture-language, is, in a certain sense, continually being created anew. Of course, it is not created, as is sometimes supposed, by the children themselves. It is a conventionalized language of the mothers and nurses who converse with the child, supplemented, in part, by the child's associates along the lines of these traditional models. The sound-complexes signifying animals, 'bow-wow' for the dog, 'hott-hott' for the horse, 'tuk-tuk' for the chicken, etc., as also 'papa' and 'mamma' for father and mother, are sounds that are in some way fitted to the meaning and at the same time resemble so far as possible the babbling sounds of the child. But this entire process is instituted by the child's associates, and is at most supplemented by the child himself to the extent of a few incidental elements. For this reason, child-language has relatively little to teach us concerning the development of speaking and thinking; those psychologists and teachers who believe that it affords an important source of information concerning the origin of thought are in error. Such information can be gained only from those modes of expressing thought which, like gesture-language, are originated anew by the speaker and are not externally derived, or from those which, like the spoken languages of primitive peoples, have retained, in their essential characteristics, primitive modes of thinking. Even in these cases it is only the forms of thought that are thus discoverable. The content, as is implied by the formal characteristics themselves, is, of course, also of a sense-perceptual, not of a conceptual, nature. And yet the particular character or quality of this content is not inherent in the forms of the language as such. To gain a knowledge of its nature we must examine the specific ideas themselves and the associated feelings and emotions.

Thus, then, the further question arises: Wherein consists the content of primitive thought? Two sorts of ideas may be distinguished. The one comprises that stock of ideas which is supplied to consciousness by the direct perceptions of daily life—ideas such as go, stand, lie, rest, etc., together with animal, tree (particularly in the form of individual animals and trees), man, woman, child, I, thou, you, and many others. These are objects of everyday perception that are familiar to all, even to the primitive mind. But there is also a second class of ideas. These do not represent things of immediate perception; briefly expressed, they originate in feeling, in emotional processes which are projected outward into the environment. This is an important and particularly characteristic group of primitive ideas. Included within it are all references to that which is not directly amenable to perception but, transcending this, is really supersensuous, even though appearing in the form of sensible ideas. This world of imagination, projected from man's own emotional life into external phenomena, is what we mean by mythological thinking. The things and processes given to perception are supplemented by other realities that are of a non-perceptible nature and therefore belong to an invisible realm back of the visible world. These are the elements, furthermore, which very early find expression in the art of primitive man.