The Complete Works of Plato

by Plato

Primitive men learnt to speak from one another, like a child from...

They learnt of course a rudimentary, half-articulate language, the cry or song or speech which was the expression of what we n...

We may still remark how much greater and more natural the exercise of the power is in the use of language than in any other p...

ii. Imitation provided the first material of language: but it was 'wi...

During how many years or hundreds or thousands of years the imitative or half-articulate stage continued there i...

But we may reasonably conjecture that there was a time when the vocal utterance of man was intermediate between what we now call lang...

It was the principle of analogy which introduced into this 'indigesta moles' order and measure.

In every sentence, in every word and every termination of a word, this power of forming relations to one another was contained.

The rules of syntax are likewise based upon analogy.

Time has an analogy with space, arithmetic with geometry.

It would be a mistake to suppose that the analogies of language are always uniform: there may be often a choice between several, and sometimes one and sometimes another will prevail.

The participle may also have the character of an adjective, the adverb either of an adjective or of a preposition. These exceptions are as regular as the rules, but the causes of them are seldom known to us.

Language, like the animal and vegetable worlds, is everywhere intersected by the lines of analogy.

Like number from which it seems to be derived, the principle of analogy opens the eyes of men to discern the similarities and differences of thi...

Gradually in language they arrange themselves into a sort of imperfect system; groups of personal and case endings are placed side by side.

The fertility of language produces many more than are wanted; and the superfluous ones are utilized by the assignment to them of new meanings.

It must be remembered that in all the languages which have a literature, certainly in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, we are not at the beginning but almost at the end of the linguistic process; we have reached a time when the verb and the noun are nearly perfected, though in no language did they completely perfect themselves, because for some unknown reason the motive powers of languages seem to have ceased when they were on the eve of completion: they became fixed or crystallized in an imperfect form either from the...

So not without admixture and confusion and displacement and contamination of sounds and the meanings of words, a lower stag...

When we ask the reason why this principle of analogy prevails in all the vast domain of language, there is no answer to the question; or no other answer but this, that there are innumerable ways in which, like number, analogy permeates, not o...

We know from experience that it does not (a) arise from any conscious act of reflection that the accusative of a Latin noun in 'us' should end in 'um;' nor (b) from any necessity of being understood,—much less articulation would suffice for this; nor (...

Such notions were certainly far enough away from the mind...

iii. Next in order to analogy in the formation of language or even prior to it comes the principle of onomatopea, which is itself a kind of analogy or similarity of sound and meaning.

In by far the greater number of words it has become disguised and has disappeared; but in no stage of language is it entirely lost.

It belongs chiefly to early language, in which words were few; and its influence grew les...

The old onomatopea of primitive language was refined into an onomatopea of a higher kind, in which it is no longer true to say that a particular sound corresponds to a motion or action of man or beast or movement of nature, but that in all the higher uses of language the sound is the echo of the sense, especially in poetry, in which beauty and expressiveness are given to human thoughts by the harmonious composition of the words, syllables, letters, accents, quantities, rhythms, rhymes, varieties and contrasts of all sorts.

A sound or word is not the work of the vocal organs only; nearly the whole of the upper part of the human frame, including head, chest, lungs, have a share in creating it; and it may be accompanied by a movement of the eyes, nose, fingers, hands, feet which contributes to the effect of it.

We do not say that we know how sense became first allied to sound; but we have no difficulty in ascertaining how the sounds and meanings of words were in time parted off or differentiated.

(1) The chief causes which regulate the variations of sound are (a) double or differing analogies, which lead sometimes to one form, sometimes to another (b) euphony, by which is meant chiefly the greater pleasure to the ear and the greater facility to the organs of speech which is given by a new formation or pronunciation of a word (c) the necessity of finding new expressions for new classes or processes of things.

We are told that changes of sound take place by innumerable gradations until a whole tribe or community or society find themselves acquiescing in...

Yet no one observes the change, or is at all aware that in the course of a lifetime he and his contemporaries have appreciably var...

On the other hand, the necessities of language seem to require that the intermediate sounds or meanings of words should quickly become fixed or set a...

The process of settling down is aided by the organs of speech and by the use ...

(2) The meaning of words varies because ideas vary or the number of things which is included under them or with which...

The good or neutral sense of a word, such as Jesuit, Puritan, Methodist, Heretic, has been often converted into a bad one by the malevolence of party spirit.

Double forms suggest different meanings and are often used to express them; and the form or accent of a word has been not unfrequently altered when there is a difference of meaning. The difference of gender in nouns is utilized for the same reason.

Language equally abhors vacancy and superfluity.

(7) We have shown that language, although subject to laws, is far from being of an exact and uniform nature.

They may be compared to the faults of Geology, in which different strata cross one another or meet at an angle, or mix with one another either by slow transitions or by violent convulsions, leaving many lacunae which can be no longer filled up, and often becoming so complex that no true explanation of them can be given.

So in language there are the cross influences of meaning and sound, of logic and grammar, of differing analogies, of words and the inflexions of words, whic...

The subtlety of nature goes far beyond art, and it is complicated by irregularity, so that often we can hardly say that there is a right or wrong in the formation of words.

The imperfection of language is really due to the formation and correlation of words by accident, that is to say, by principles which are unknown to us.

Hence we see why Plato, like ourselves unable to comprehend the whole of language, was constrained to 'supplement the poor creature imitation by another poor creature convention.'

(8) There are two ways in which a language may attain permanence or fixity. First, it may have been embodied in poems or hymns or laws, which may be repeated for hundreds, perhaps for thousands of years with a religious accuracy, so that to the priests or rhapsodists of a nation the whole or the greater part of a language is literally preserved; secondly, it may be written down and in a written form distributed more or less widely among the whole nation. In either case the language which is familiarly spoken may have grown up wholly or in a great measure independently of them.

(2) The invention of writing again is commonly attributed to a particular epoch, and we are apt to think that such an inestimable gift would have immediately been diffused over a whole country.

But it may have taken a long time to perfect the art of writing, and another long period may have elapsed before it came into common use. Its influence on language has been increased ten, twenty or one hundred fold by the invention of printing.

Before the growth of poetry or the invention of writing, languages were only dialects. So they continued to be in parts of the country in which writing was not used or ...

When a book sinks into the mind of a nation, such as Luther's Bible or the Authorized English Translation of the Bible, or again great classical works like Shakspere or Milton, not only have new powers of expression been diffused through a whole nation, but a great step towards uniformity has been made.

The instinct of language demands regular grammar and correct spelling: these are imprinted deeply on the tablets of a nation's memory by a common use of classical and popular writers.

In our own day we have attained to a point at which nearly every printed book is spelt correctl...

(9) Proceeding further to trace the influence of literature on language we note some other causes which have affected the higher use of it: such as (1) the necessity of clearness and connexion; (2) the fear of tautology; (3) the influence of metre, rhythm, rhyme, and of the language of prose and verse upon one another;...