Perhaps the most expeditious way of indicating what is meant by the Primitive Vocabulary is to present an illustrative list, an example of a Primitive Vocabulary. This is done in the Table at the beginning of this paper but before presenting the list, there are a few preliminary points which can usefully be made:

a. The idea of the Primitive Vocabulary is that it contains words whose meaning and understanding can only come from the direct confrontation so to say between the word as a patterned speech-sound and the specific experience (visual or action) to which it relates in the language used in the particular community, that is: we could not understand what in experience a flower might be without seeing a flower and being told that it was a flower; we could not understand what RED as a word means without seeing something red and being told that it is 'red';

b. There is no such thing as the absolute Primitive Vocabulary, in the sense that there is a defined minimum of words matching a defined minimum of items of perceptual experience but there is probably a near enough core primitive vocabulary which will be shared by all normal children and adults - body parts, body movements, colours, visual qualities. For a particular child (or adult), what in fact is contained in the Primitive Vocabulary depends firstly on the core items, secondly on the community environment in early years and thirdly on the particular family or social situation of the individual child in its early years: a Duke's child may well have a considerably different Primitive Vocabulary (and different repertoire of perceptual experience) from a dustman's child; the child of an Indian peasant will have a different Primitive Vocabulary (and primitive repertoire) from the child of a New York stockbroker and so on;

c. There may well also be, at first at any rate, a significant difference between the contents of a child's Primitive Vocabulary and the contents of its primitive perceptual repertoire; an infant will perceive and recognise a straight line, an angle or a circle but it does not follow that its parents will have told the child that these percepts are called LINE ANGLE or CIRCLE. An infant may also have inner perceptual experience, feel, think, know, without learning or being told that these experiences are named as FEEL THINK and KNOW. These gaps in the matching between primitive words and primitive percepts will normally be filled in later on and of course there can equally well be reverse gaps where an infant hears a word used without the matching percept to which it refers being presented to him;

d. Listing of the various words shown in the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary does not of course mean that all words listed are acquired together, though some words may be learned in groups. For each infant, there will be an individual order of acquisition of particular primitive words, though certain uniformities are probable in the order of word acquisition, particularly for functional words (as Roger Brown's observations suggest). For concrete words, the order of acquisition will depend on the order of actual experience of the objects referred to, which may differ between children and may be spread over a shorter or longer period;

e. Beyond what is presented here as an illustrative Primitive Vocabulary, there is a very much larger number (perhaps many times larger) of other primitive words (matching other items of primitive perceptual experience) where the understanding of the meaning of the word depends on conjoined experience of the word and the object or event. There is a mass of other words which cannot be understood mediately, that is by definition in terms of already familiar words;

f. One final obvious point: for individuals belonging to different cultures and climates, there will be words which are never found as part of their primitive vocabularies. ICE will certainly' not be in the Primitive Vocabulary of someone living on the equator and MONSOON will not be in the primitive vocabulary of a child brought up in England. Correspondingly, there may be a range of words in the Primitive Vocabulary of a child in one culture corresponding to a single primitive word in the vocabulary of a child in a remote culture: the familiar examples are the number of different words said to exist for different types of snow found among the Eskimos and the range of different words for animals, e.g. for camels found among the Arabs. The words forming a particular Primitive Vocabulary are not confined to common objects or even common percepts but extend over the whole of an individual's immediate, first-hand experience; they represent the irreducible elements in his linguistic mapping of his world.

The list described as the Primitive Vocabulary at the beginning of this paper is, as has already been noted, only one among many possible primitive vocabularies though the proposition is that some primitive list of this kind is the starting point for every individual's acquisition of language. The presentation of a specific illustrative list of this kind, however, allows one to consider a number of points, to raise a number of questions:

1. Why should the particular words included in the list figure in it?

2. How is this concept of a primitive vocabulary related to other uses of semantic primitives, in a variety of fields of study?

3. What kind of internal structuring does a list of this kind display both in terms of meanings and in terms of the grammatical classifications of the words included in it?

4. How is a list of this kind related to the development of a child's repertoire of perceptual experience (and experience of action)?

5. By what processes can the field of application of words included in the list be extended?

6. More generally, what is the relation between a Primitive Vocabulary ('core' vocabulary) of this kind and the full vocabulary acquired by an adult, the full lexicon of a particular language?

7. What significance should be attached to the scope for the metaphorical use of words included in the Primitive Vocabulary or of other words subsequently added to form the adult lexicon?

8. In what sense can one treat words included in a Primitive Vocabulary of this kind as natural, that is as having a non-arbitrary relation between the sound-structure of the word and its meaning?

Selection of the five hundred or so words which figure in the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary has been guided by a number of principles. First of all, the essential qualification for inclusion of a word in the list is that it should not be possible for the meaning of the word to be understood by definition in terms of other words; though some broad indication of the meaning of one of the words may be given by using more evolved parts of an individual's vocabulary, the way in which a child learns the meaning of 'saucer', 'sit', 'finger' is by actual experience. Locke commented on the impossibility of indicating to a blind man the sensation associated with the word 'scarlet'; the nearest one might come to it, he thought, might be 'something like the sound of a trumpet', but this would still be far from understanding the concrete meaning in experience of 'scarlet'. Not all the words included in the Primitive Vocabulary are ones for which an object can be indicated by pointing, handling, hearing or smelling; some words are understood as associated with a particular facet of experience: 'bad' or a particular use of language: 'What?' No parent explains to a child 'This is what 'what' means'; or 'bad' is defined in the following way. The learning of words such as these is as much a part of the child's lived experience as its learning of the meaning of 'cat', 'chair', 'black' and so on.

There is nothing particularly new, of course, about an attempt to identify a restricted, primitive list of words, for linguistic research or other purposes. In the investigation of unknown or little known languages, it is commonplace for the field investigator to make use of a restricted basic vocabulary. For example, the interesting work done by members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics into the genetic relationship of groups of American Indian languages Comparative Studies in Amerindian Languages (ed. Esther Matteson et al 1972) was based on restricted word-lists which, for the different languages, ranged between 100 and 300 words. Morris Swadesh (1972), for work in support of glottochronological theory, used a basic vocabulary list containing 100 words. The constructors of Basic English confined themselves to 850 words (including many words for commercial applications which would not be suitable for a primitive list of the kind with which the discussion in this chapter is concerned). In the field of artificial intelligence, there has been intense discussion of the extent to which knowledge structures can be built up from extremely limited lists of semantic primitives. Yorick Wilks (1977)proposed that some 100 semantic primitives would suffice; others, e.g. Roger Schank (1972)have made do with very much smaller numbers. An illustrative Primitive Vocabulary containing nearly 500 words is thus of a respectable size and may serve as a basis for useful discussion of some of the issues which have been noted above.

The items included in a primitive vocabulary of this kind fall naturally into a number of distinct categories; the list can be structured in various ways. Most obviously, the words are divided between those referring to shapes and things, movements and actions and qualities and relations. More broadly, one might say that the items in the list divide into those which are specifiable in spatial terms and those which are specifiable in terms of time, and that relational words, as well as words relating to objects or movements, can be referred primarily to space or time relations. Another basis of structure of items in the list is the sensory modality with which a word is primarily associated: things seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled, felt internally, and so on. Another basis of arrangement of items in the list is in terms of the specific physical structures of which the items normally form part or in which they are experienced, for example, parts of the body are naturally grouped together as are movements of those body-parts, objects found in a room or a house can be grouped together as can be objects in the external landscape, whether the smaller-scale landscape of street and neighbourhood or the larger landscape of field, wood, lake, sea and sky. Objects can be classified in terms of their size or use as instruments, as parts of sequences of activity or types of occupation, furniture, clothing, utensils. Against this wide variety of possibilities of classification of the items to which the words in the Primitive Vocabulary relate one can set the traditional groupings of grammar, the analysis into parts of speech, nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, adverbs, pronouns; the traditional classification has a rather arid and academic air compared with the groupings and structuring of words in the Primitive Vocabulary given by experience. Though MOUTH may be classified as noun, DRINK as verb and SWEET as adjective, the real experiential grouping of the items is as part of one process for the child, for example, drinking a glass of milk or a cup of tea, and this sort of analysis is closer to that suggested by Fillmore in his case grammar, to the concept of selection restrictions used in transformational grammar and to the frame approach suggested by Minsky in artificial intelligence and Roger Schank's (1980) approach in terms of 'scripts', that is extended descriptions of the kinds of setting in which particular words are likely to figure. This issue, of the way in which the lexicon is naturally and operationally structured, as an aspect of the process of speech comprehension, is one to which it will be necessary to return later. It is of particular importance because the suggestion will be that the express or implicit structuring of items in the Primitive Vocabulary (and of the parallel items in the primitive repertoire of perceptual experience) is the foundation for the organic structuring of the total lexicon of any individual adult or in the extreme, of the total lexicon of any given language. What is clear however at this stage is that the traditional analysis into parts of speech has only a rather distant relation to the natural structuring which the set of words in the Primitive Vocabulary displays; in English, the same word may readily serve as verb, noun or adjective; adverbs and prepositions are often only with difficulty distinguishable; parts of speech normally associated with distinctions of space are often used, with little complication, to refer to distinctions of time. Consideration of the practically effective structuring either of the primitive vocabulary or of the full lexicon will require a pretty radical reconsideration of the formal or real significance of traditional parts-of-speech categorisation.

Not much perhaps needs to be said about the relation between a child's primitive vocabulary and the development of the child's repertoire of perceptual experience, which has been the subject of such close study by Piaget and his assistants. The effective acquisition of a word by a child must proceed in step with the maturing of its sensorimotor capabilities and the meaning attached to a particular word may broaden or narrow as the child's experience of perception and action extends. Individual words may receive a wider extension: 'mother' (initially one person in a particular relation and to some extent itself a generalisation from the separate occasions on which the phenomena of 'Mother' manifest themselves) may gradually become a word referring' to 'mothers in general'; the mother of that other child as well as the mother of the individual child; there is a quite natural extension of a word from referring to one particular percept to referring to a class of similar percepts. 'Chair' may initially be one chair and later on 'any chair'. Words included in the Primitive Vocabulary are thus not all necessarily at the same level of concreteness or abstractness, particularity or generality. Apart from the implicit generalisation in each individual word, there may be words which are already classes of classes; e.g. 'colour' may refer to any of red, green &c and indeed the child may in fact acquire the word 'colour' as 'a set of colours', crayons, or a colouring book. Nor will the acquisition of words necessarily match that of the theoretical class-order. 'Clothes' as in bed-clothes or the child's own clothes may be a functioning item of experience, a usable word, before particular types of clothes, whether these are 'sheet', 'blanket', 'dress' and so on. The word 'fruit' and the experience 'fruit' may come before the acquisition of words for individual fruits. The schemes proposed in more abstract approaches to semantic features, the hierarchical ordering of words and concepts, may simply be irrelevant for the mode in which in fact a child, or an adult acquires the elements in his Primitive Vocabulary. The reality is that every word is an abstraction from the multiplicity and individuality of perceptual and action experience and acquisition of particular words may proceed, in temporal order, either from the more specific to the more general or from the more general to the more specific (as the entomologist, for example, proceeds from 'ant' and 'bee' in his primitive child's vocabulary to the hundreds of thousands of specifically distinguished ants and bees recognised in his professional career. Theoretical semantics so far has generally disregarded this vitally important aspect of the growth of the individual's semantic structure, his knowledge structure.

Some indication has already been given of how words forming part of an individual's primitive vocabulary can gradually and naturally acquire a wider range of application, as the individual's experience itself develops. Most simply, apart from extending the word 'chair' to apply to any chair rather than just one particular chair (that is to any item sharing some broad structural features with what has first been identified as 'the chair') there can be a further very obvious analogous extension of the application of a primitive word. For example, 'leg', originally perceived as part of the child's own body, is extended first to apply to 'leg of any human', then to 'leg of any animal' (in many respects resembling the human body) and then, more adventurously) to 'leg of any object' which has an even looser structural resemblance to the human or animal body; so one has 'leg of a table' and then to any appendage attached to something broadly conceivable as a unity, a body, 'leg of an electricity pylon' or even 'leg of a race'. These are all processes of generalisation and abstraction, noting once again that even the original percept 'leg' itself was a generalisation from repeated, separate perceptions of a persisting leg, itself a construct from the visual elements forming each individual perception of the leg. At some point, 'leg' receives an even bolder extension, a metaphorical transfer where the word is applied to refer to non-external, perceptual experience, such as the 'leg of an argument'. This final, metaphorical transfer between external perceptual experience and abstract, remote, internal perceptual experience, is one of the major, absolutely fundamental processes in the development of language, both lexically and syntactically. A good deal more will have to be said about its significance later. It is one of the major ways in which a limited initial lexicon can be adapted to map on to a progressively greater and greater area of human experience. But beyond these fairly straightforward ways in which individual words in the Primitive Vocabulary may acquire a wider area of application, there are, of course, important, well-known ways in which words can be produced by composition, derivation, the use of prefixes and suffixes, which can operate very substantially to enlarge the area of experience covered by words initially in the Primitive Vocabulary and beyond that go to the construction of the fuller lexicon in due course acquired by the child and the adult.

The question for consideration is, first, how, from the rather small initial primitive vocabulary of some 500 words does the individual come, over the years, to increase the number of words in his vocabulary many times over, up to 25/30,000 words or so. Beyond that is the total extension of the English lexicon, which even if one allows for the rarities and hapax legomena of the full Oxford English Dictionary, must reach astronomical numbers going well beyond half-a-million words; with the accelerating growth of specialised vocabularies from year to year, it must now be getting to the point where there are between 3/4 million and 1 million English words. No precise estimate can be made. The available words change and increase from year to year; there is room for debate amongst linguists about what exactly should count as one word: the verb with all its inflections, singular and plural forms, adverbial forms and so on, but no one can challenge the proposition that English, as a language nowadays, must have one of the largest and most imposing vocabularies of any language in the world. There is obviously a mammoth task in any attempt to explain how this huge accumulation of words is built, some rationality in its structure is achieved and preserved and a widespread facility to make correct and creative use of the resources offered by the English lexicon is acquired by probably a quite substantial part of the English-speaking population. Though at first sight, the thought of trying to trace a link between the diminutive Primitive Vocabulary and this great mass of English words must seem intimidating, yet in other scientific fields equally intimidating tasks have been tackled and resolved in reasonably satisfactory ways; one has only to think of the millions of species, varieties of animals, insects, fish, plants, bacteria, viruses, of the endless multiplicity of chemical forms, of the ever-growing complexity of research in physics, to feel encouragement that the task of bringing some order to the phenomena of language should not be impossible. In the case of other complex systems, gradually sharpening ideas about the elementary units of the system, about the principles for the combination of those elements and the structuring rules governing the operation of the whole system have made it possible to formulate plausible and useful comprehensive hypotheses.

How then is the gap between the five hundred or so words in the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary and the typical adult lexicon of 25/30,000 words to be bridged (and the even greater gap between the initial 500 words and half-a-million or million total words available in theoretically complete English lexicon ) ? How, as a parallel question, can the elementary vocabulary at first available to map on to a very simple world (of the child) extend to the range of words needed to map on to the human intellectual terrain, the whole range of human knowledge and experience? The following attempts to list systematically the way in which the mustard-seed of the Primitive Vocabulary can grow into the huge tree of language:

1. Without introducing any new word-forms to the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary, as has already been indicated the words already in it can be used in new ways to provide a much more extensive mapping of perceptual experience. Words originally applied to single percepts or actions can be applied to a range or class of percepts and actions; simple words can be applied to refer to structurally similar aspects of experience (a primitive form of metaphorical extension of the use of words). Words referring to percepts first experienced as objects can be used as indications of action, nouns converted into verbs or adjectives; there can, in English, be a rich grammatical extension in the application to experience of a range of words. By these simple processes, the range of perceptual experience covered by the words in the list can without difficulty be extended many times over, possibly by a factor of ten or even a hundred;

2. Still confining oneself to words in the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary, one can extend their range of application by the straightforward process of composition, by putting together two words in the primitive list, some new percept can be identified or some specialised variant of a known percept indicated. From the word LEG, one can form, with other words in the Primitive Vocabulary, a whole range of words: TABLELEG, CHAIRLEG - simply by combining words falling in the same broad category of shapes and objects. Even more extensive combinations can be derived from putting together words referring to objects and words referring to movement, action, quality or relation, e.g. BACKDOOR, BACKSTAIRS, BEDSIDE, CATCALL, OVERSEA, UNDERCOAT and so on; obviously a very large number of combinations and permutations of the words in the Primitive Vocabulary is possible;

3. Then there is the set of minor variations in word-form, part of the process normally described as derivation, which may allow each word in the Primitive Vocabulary to develop into a whole family of words; there is, in English, a large number of bound morphemes (which might well be included in their own right in the Primitive Vocabulary) which are highly productive in yielding new applications of meaning from existing words, for example, prefixes such as RE- or UN-, suffixes such as -ER, -NESS, -ING, -LESS. These bound morphemes may provide particular applications of words in the Primitive Vocabulary, mark changes in grammatical function, or in fact generate words with quite distinct meanings, where the relation to the earlier primitive meaning is more remote.

4. From the three types of process described, it is apparent already that from a Primitive Vocabulary of about 500 words, many thousands more words can be derived and that, for the most part, these new words and new applications will still be closely linked to the perceptual structuring underlying the categories into which the Primitive Vocabulary naturally divides. At a guess, something like 5000 or 10,000 words may be readily derived in these ways from the original 500. Perhaps even more important, the area of perceptual experience covered by the available vocabulary (restricted though it still is) is likely to have increased by a much larger factor still. This is still only a small way from the initial 500 words of the Primitive Vocabulary to a reasonably typical adult vocabulary (though the words available may already be adequate for the greater part of the language-communication needs of the typical member of the community).

5. The next major extension of the vocabulary (which may in fact of course proceed in parallel with the extension derived directly from the words of the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary) comes with the addition of what are essentially other Primitive Vocabulary word-forms, words related to discrete items of experience, which may be old and familiar or novel. All the words for birds, animals, fruit, trees, minerals, fish, insects, flowers come into the vocabulary as primitive elements. A camel, just as much as a cat or a dog, has to be seen before the word can become a functioning part of someone's vocabulary. Some of the names of animals may, in the Saussurean sense, be completely opaque, non-self-explanatory; others nay be apparently combinations of preexisting word forms, such as BLACKBIRD, even though the identification of the particular bird cannot be derived from the combination of the two apparently familiar words. At this stage in the continuing growth of the Primitive Vocabulary, we are still chiefly concerned with words not borrowed or deliberately introduced as learned terms into the English language, words which for the typical English-speaker are thought of as native. Note that in parallel to the expansion of the individual adult's Primitive Vocabulary (in the sense defined), there is also a continuing growth in the so-to-say collective Primitive Vocabulary of English, as new items of experience come to be named; even a word such as 'television' is thought of as primitive, an object of experience rather than a word understood by definition. Insofar as the new items acquired are essentially extensions of the Primitive Vocabulary, they are not isolated but will find their place in the field-structure into which the Primitive Vocabulary divides; they will have a direct perceptual base and will not be learnable by the intermediation of other words i.e. it will still remain the case that experience of word and percept conjoined is essential, though extension of the perceptual repertoire can all the time, and will all the time tend to, proceed in advance of the corresponding extension of the lexicon in fact comprehended and usable by the individual.

6. How much progress then has now been made from the small initial vocabulary to the full adult vocabulary? or to the full English lexicon? Allowing for the application of processes of composition and derivation, the possible variations in grammatical use of individual words, it is now quite possible that the total available vocabulary may have reached something like 25,000 to 40,000 words or even more, certainly reasonable progress towards the typical adult vocabulary though still a long way short of the contents of any substantial English dictionary. The next great step forward in the size of the English vocabulary comes from a feature particularly marked in English as compared with most other languages, its extraordinary readiness as a historical fact to take in words from other languages (French, the Germanic languages, Latin, Greek) and often to naturalise them, to use them in parallel with or to supplement English words not far removed from them in meaning. Sometimes there is no English equivalent - the word TELEVISION has already been mentioned- but sometimes the words introduced seem almost duplicates of already available English words, so that the effect has been more to allow a finer discrimination of perceptual experience by the differentiation of the English and the foreign word. See for example the range of colour-words introduced from other languages. Some of the words borrowed into English in this way are, one may say, elements in the Primitive Vocabulary of the originating language; others, as borrowed into English, in every respect operate as primitive words e.g. one cannot know by definition the perceptual meaning of the word BEIGE. But where the borrowed words are not themselves primitive words in their original language, they will have been indirectly derived from the primitive vocabularies of the originating language. For example, JUSTICE comes from a Latin primitive word JUS, INDECISION from a combination of Latin primitive words equivalent to UN-, OFF and CUT (IN DE CAEDERE). Meanings of derived words such as these in English are generally not primitive; their meaning can be explained by a string of simple English primitive words; the motive for their introduction into English often has been allow the compression into a single more concise form of a complex set of actions, percepts, events, relationships. Such words are for convenience rather than essential but they represent an extremely important new principle in the generation of the English lexicon, as compared with the development directly from the English primitive vocabulary. Such words survive because they are useful; no one, without a rather lengthy use of other words, could by immediate contemplation of a word such as MISDEMEANOUR, rather than a definition, arrive at a precise view of its meaning or use. The process by which the particular word MISDEMEANOUR becomes attached to a particular area of experience is complex, historically and intellectually, but no doubt it could plausibly be attributed to the operation of what the general semanticists would describe as their third principle, the self-reflexive potentialities of language, the creation of new words to refer to groupings or strings of existing words. One final comment on the significance of this type of borrowing for the expansion of the English lexicon: the driving force for the addition of words to the lexicon comes from the ever-growing extent of individual and collective perceptual and intellectual experience, the growth of knowledge in all its forms, science and technology, knowledge of the world and of societies. Perception for the individual and for the community is open-ended and language has to keep growing to match it.

7. Starting from the small initial Primitive Vocabulary of some 500 words, one has proceeded to a vocabulary of some 25,000 to 40,000 words by processes of derivation, composition &c applied to primitive English elements and beyond this one has an immense accession to the vocabulary from the introduction of words originating in the primitive vocabularies of other languages and from the application of composition, derivation, prefixation and suffixation to these words. And note that what has been borrowed from other languages includes not only particular simple or compound words but also word-elements, bound morphemes, which form part of the primitive resources of foreign languages and have been applied to extend the range of variation of meaning of existing English words e.g. the use of suffixes like -ISM, -TION, derived from Latin, Greek or French to provide new adaptations of originally English words. It would be an immense task, only to be undertaken by those who have devoted their professional lives to the compiling of dictionaries and the problems of etymology and philology to present any close statistical analysis of the format of the total English lexicon in terms of the different sources from which and the different processes by which it has been built up but the vital point with which the discussion in the present part of this Chapter began, that is the distinction between words understood only by experience and words understandable through description in terms of other words remains. The greater part of the lexicon, the borrowed words, and particularly those borrowed for specialised uses, fall into the second category, that is they must be explained in terms of words which ultimately are self-explanatory but one should not forget that within the lexical structures of the languages from which English has borrowed its words, exactly the same process has operated, that is the formation of the foreign lexicon from an original primitive core; one can arrive at the meaning of compound foreign-derived words often by analysing them to discover the primitive core from which they have been built. The primitive core in the other foreign languages is, on the contention of this chapter, as firmly based in the necessities of human behaviour, human perception, action and internal experience, as is the core Primitive Vocabulary of which an illustration for English was given earlier in this Chapter; that is, mediately or immediately, the whole lexicon is pervaded by the naturally-derived structuring of human experience.

To sum up, where has the discussion so far reached? That segment of the total lexicon which relates to external perceptual experience, has a strong, simple framework, directly relatable back to the original core Primitive Vocabulary (matching the original primitive repertoire of experience), and this structure is the foundation of order and correctness in the use of words. The problems of semantics really start with the use of words to deal with more complex internal human experience, going beyond the more direct internal perceptual awareness of one's state of feeling and so on, to the content of intellectual experience, verbal rules, laws, judgments of value. It would not be surprising if, in a sense, at this remote point, the lexicon, that is the use of language, tends to get out of control, to 'run amok', as the links tying back the compound and complex words used to the firm central perceptual framework become too tenuous; the endless verbal disputes of philosophers, theologians, lawyers, literary critics, politicians, pedagogues and, not least, linguisticians and grammarians, show that in these higher reaches, the lexicon has in effect gone out of control, reflecting of course the unclear perceptions of the parties to the disputes of the functioning of their own minds, their own languages, their own societies. Language cannot preserve those who use it from their own failures of perception.

Perhaps this is a disappointing result but there is a very large part of the lexicon which is solidly based and relatable to perceptual structures and this is adequate for all normal uses in life. However, at a certain point, the checks on innovation in language, on idiosyncrasy in language and the diversity of idiolects, become too weak because of the distance of the discussion from the reliable normal processes of human perception (particularly visual perception). One might say there is a failure in the satisfactoriness of the structure of the lexicon, though from another point of view, it could be said that much or all of the disputes about the use of terms are failed attempts to arrive at a clearer view of the organic relation of the available words to the strong central structure of language as a matching of perceptual experience, a mapping of human experience. Structures in the lexicon which are perfectly comprehensible and reliable applied to simple material become chancy applied to less clearly-defined material. This brings the argument straight to the most vital feature of language-development, which can be welcomed for its contribution to creativity and deplored for its contribution to confusion, that is the process of the metaphorical extension of words and language-structures. Metaphorical transformation is the key process in the development of language and thought, a subject which must be examined with some care. Metaphor, etymologically, simply means 'transfer'; traditionally it has been treated as a figure of speech, an elegance of language; 'the transfer of a word or phrase to describe or denote something entirely different from the idea, object, action or quality which it primarily and usually expresses, thus suggesting a resemblance or analogy'. But this is to take far too narrow and traditional a view of what is as fundamental a process for the operation of language as the power of abstraction and generalisation is for the functioning of thought. One might quote again, with even greater emphasis this time, John Locke's observation "how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas, and how those which are made use of have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognisance of our senses e.g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity &c are all words taken from the operations of sensible things and applied to certain modes of thinking." In the terms which have been used in this Chapter, all the words mentioned by John Locke and a vast host of other abstract words can have their practical significance traced back to elements in the Primitive Vocabulary either of English or of other languages from which primitive elements have been borrowed; we may comprehend or apprehend an idea or equally say that we grasp or hold an idea in our mind; both the words derived from Latin and the simple English words say exactly the same thing, and express, through transfer of the most ordinary movement of our hands and arms, the remote conception of fixing in our mind a particular complex of thought.

Metaphorical transformation is a process which can operate at the word-level, the phrase-level or the sentence-level (as the standard dictionary definition would say) and note, most importantly, that it operates to transform the character of every word in the metaphorical phrase; if one says that 'one has an idea on one's mind', not only is the sentence a strange kind of metaphorical picture where a theoretical object, an idea, is placed on a theoretical surface (like a table, perhaps a tabula rasa) just as a cup might be placed on a table, but the small functional word ON itself is being used in a transferred, metaphorical way; ON gains its meaning as part of the Primitive Vocabulary from the normal experience of seeing something on a table or other object, or placing something on something, a cap on one's head. By the process of metaphor, the whole relational system, both in time and space, expressed in English typically by prepositions is transformed into an abstract intellectual space, the space of one's mind and consciousness. Perhaps much more important than the traditional 'poetical' use of metaphor is the structural role of the metaphorical process in making available for use in discussing abstract matters (the complexities of human thought, language and intention) the simple structures of the Primitive Vocabulary, the patterned relationships of ordinary perceived and experienced objects, actions, events, qualities.

This high estimation of the value of the metaphorical transformation is not original or unusual. Though great reams of commentary have been written about the use of metaphor stylistically, there has also been a substantial literature about the more fundamental role of metaphor. To take a selection of comments from others who have written on the subject:

'All language, by the nature of its 'transferring' relation to reality.. is fundamentally metaphorical. Metaphor is not something special and exceptional..It is the omnipresent principle' of all language...All languages contain deeply embedded metaphorical structures which covertly influence overt meaning'. 'Metaphor in short is the way language works. A metaphor is made out of and it makes those realities (of life and language).. Metaphor is at the centre of language that the process of metaphor is located at the heart of language and indeed defines and refines it, and thus man himself, remains the central stance of most Twentieth Century writers on the subject and their overriding preoccupation" (Brook-Rose 1958, Hawkes 1972, Richards 1936, Black 1954)

Much of what is quoted above is taken from I.A. Richards' The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Language, as others have pointed out, teems with fossilised metaphors, with abstract words from one European language to another tending to derive from the same metaphors.

So far, this chapter has discussed semantic structuring in terms of the formation of a Primitive Vocabulary based on simple perception, action and language experience of the child; it has explained how, starting from this structure, by a variety of processes, a much larger lexicon is built up (in English) covering an ever greater area of the total perceptual and other experience of the typical adult, and eventually the whole field of experience and knowledge enshrined in the English language. The growth of the lexicon has taken in and domesticated material from foreign languages, originally based in exactly the same way in those other languages on the primitive elements of experience so that underlying the whole of the experiential lexicon are the simplicities of the original structure, the origin of words in the different sensory modalities, in the different physical frames of experience of the body, the room, the house, the street, the landscape and in the different direct internal experience of the individual, his feelings of hunger, weariness, joy, excitement, expectation and so on. Beyond this great block of the English lexicon is the even larger block of the abstract lexicon, for manipulating thought, constructing scientific theories, evaluating literary forms, describing the subtleties of the human mind and character, elaborating philosophies and religions. These two great blocks of the lexicon, the more immediate perceptual block and the abstract block, are knitted together, organically related to one another through the absolutely basic neurological process of metaphorical transformation. Metaphor is not a linguistic device primarily but a perceptual device; it is the manner in which our perceptual system extracts from the multifarious patterns of reality analogies of structure, uniformities of organisation between things and events which may at first seem quite distinct. The metaphorical process as it operates uniformly to extend language and perceptual experience to match each other is only the last stage in the great hierarchy of physiological and neurological processes by which the eye and the ear, the visual and auditory apparatus and brain, extract from endless apparent diversity of form the definite, patterned persisting objects, sounds, events and actions from which our world is made. At the humblest level, the visual and neurological processes which from the endlessly varying appearances of any single visible object (at different angles, in different lights, in different positions and relations),the brain identifies this structure (and records it) as A CHAIR or A TREE (however many different sorts of chair or tree there may be), is the same category of process as that by which a political theorist identifies a persisting society, a lawyer the structure of a legal system, or a linguist the persisting inherent ordered structure of a language.

Most briefly, the metaphorical process (of language and perception) unites the Primitive Vocabulary and the total lexicon, the primitive perceptual repertoire and the total range of human experience.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

ANNEX TO CHAPTER IV

The structure of the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary in terms of the types of visual or action contours to which the word-structures are related; and examples for a selection of words from the Vocabulary of the specific relation between the particular word-structure and the particular associated visual or action contour

- - - - -

The purpose of this Annex is to bring together this general argument and evidence in a practical demonstration of the manner in which the appropriateness of individual words for their meaning, the naturalness of individual words, can be derived from the relation between their structure and the visual contours, the contours of action and other features of perception and action necessarily associated with the particular speech-sounds used and the order in which those sounds are arranged in the individual word.

This Annex does not set out to explain or justify in detail the particular way in which the sound-structures of the individual words give rise to or are associated with the particular visual or action contours which indicate their meaning. That is a lengthy matter which has been dealt with elsewhere. A careful explanation of the process by which elementary units of speech-sound are combined and matched with combinations of elementary units of bodily action or vision is contained in the Appendix, which itself is largely based on the material assembled in the author's earlier account in his book The Physical Foundation of Language (1973).

The Annex deals with two matters: first, it explains how the words in the Primitive Vocabulary (on page 61) can be classified in terms of visual or action contours associated with each of them, as a consequence of the particular sound-structure of the individual words, Secondly it sets out specifically for a substantial sample of words drawn from the Primitive Vocabulary the character of the visual or action contour associated with the particular word which constitutes the natural bond between the sound of the word and its meaning. Practical verification of the validity of the relationships for the individual words chosen is something that can only be taken a limited way at this point. The reader will have to rely on his own efforts, after studying Appendix II to decide whether or not the relationships proposed for the individual words seem plausible and helpful.

Classification of the Primitive Vocabulary in terms of associated visual or action contours

The list on page 61 [moved to top of document] contains rather less than 500 words. The broad classes into which these are divided is already indicated in the list.... The following paragraphs describe more fully the meaning of these classifications and the general characteristics of the structure of the Primitive Vocabulary when one analyses it in terms of the number of words found in each class.

The first broad classification is into:

Shapes and Things
Primary Visual
Body Parts
Animate
Food etc.
Near Objects
Larger Scale
Auditory
Time aspects
Movements and actions
Primary
Movement of body parts
Arm actions
Whole body actions
Complex actions
Internal actions and states 
Qualities and Relations
Visual Qualities
Other Qualities
Relational

Some notes on the interpretation of these categories may be helpful:

1. Primary visual includes words which seem to have a simple visual contour 2. Animate extends to include a few parts of animate creatures (the category body parts relates to parts of the human body) 3. Food &c includes a few parts of edible things 4. Near Objects consists largely of objects found within a room or within a house (though some items are classed here purely for convenience e.g. ship, boat, car) 5. Larger scale could be divided into two sub-categories, near landscape (things outside of but near to and on the scale of the house) and larger-scale landscape features 6. Auditory contains a few items where the mode of perception seems clearly to be auditory rather than visual 7. Time aspects this is a list which could be considerably extended but it is a difficult group which obviously needs further consideration 8. Movements and actions Most of the categories are self-explanatory. The list does (somewhat inconsistently) include a few stative verbs; where IS (AM or ARE) and similar verbs should be placed is a rather arbitrary decision 9.Complex actions These refer to actions involving instruments or specific external circumstances or goals 10. Internal actions and states It is arguable in several cases whether words in the list should be treated as referring to internal actions or internal states. Some could equally well be either (and a good deal of philosophical discussion has been devoted to the attempt to decide whether they are state or action) 11. Spatial qualities and relations These divide into positional and directional (mostly positional) but the distinction is not a clearcut one.

In terms of the numbers of words in each of the main categories, the analysis straightforwardly is as follows:

Primary Visual                          33 words
Body Parts                              34
Animate &c                              32
Food &c                                 17
Near Objects                            66
Larger scale                            40
SHAPES AND THINGS                                       222 words

AUDITORY                                                   
7 words

TIME ASPECTS                                               
8 words

Primary movement                     17
Movement of body parts                  24
Arm actions                             34
Whole body actions                      30
Complex actions                         12
Internal actions states                 14

MOVEMENTS AND ACTIONS                                131 words

Visual qualities                     32
Other qualities                         32

All Qualities                                        64 words

Spatial relations                            39
Other relations          22

All relations                                        61 words

QUALITIES AND RELATIONS                                    
125 words

TOTAL PRIMITIVE VOCABULARY                           486 words

The above gives a broad first analysis of the composition of the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary in terms of the common-sense classifications into which the different words in the list on page 61 have been grouped. Against each word ... a letter or letters has been set, and these are intended to indicate more precisely the kind of visual or action contour (or other perceptual characteristic) associated with the sound-structure of each word. Taking a couple of obvious cases, the two words SUCK and LICK are put in the category of 'movement of body parts' and have the letter A marked against them; the A simply means that the kind of contour or action associated with the sound-structure of these words is straightforward bodily action. It seems self-evident that the words SUCK and LICK, by virtue of the sound-elements of which they are formed: and the way these sound-elements are in fact produced, are very closely associated with the actual actions of sucking and licking; if one says either of the words carefully and emphatically, one finds that in the very action of saying them, one comes very close to performing the specific actions which constitute the meanings of the words. Of course, for many of the words in the list, the relation between sound and action or visual contour is less immediately apparent and the letters set against each of the words are intended as a guide in each case to the associated effect.

The following shows the significance of the different markings ... :

- V this means that there is a visual contour associated with the sound-element. going to form the word, which resembles or at least gives a cue or clue to the percept to which the word refers

- A Similarly this means that there is an action or action-contour associated with the sound-structure of the word. So, for SUCK, as already referred to, the marking is A because the action of sucking is clearly associated with the saying of the word

-P This means that there is a Pointing action directly associated with the saying of the word. This is, not surprisingly, the kind of action particularly associated with words referring to parts of the body: EYE EAR NOSE

- SH :This means that the action associated with the sound of the word is an actual showing of the part referred to. For example, the simplest indication of HAND is to hold up the hand, and the sound-structure of the word is associated with that action

- VP This indicates that the contour or action associated with the sound of the word combines visual and pointing elements, with the form first indicated V for visual, appearing to be the more important

- PV :This is the reverse of the previous mark, that is the Pointing element appears to be more important than the visual element in the associated contour or action

- S :This means that associated with the sound-elements going to form the particular word is a sound typical of the thing to which the word is related e.g. most obviously the word THUNDER has associated with it a sound imitating thunder

- SR this moans that associated with the word-structure is a sound referring to the percept or thing to which the word relates e.g the word BEE has associated with it the sound of a bee buzzing (see for example BUMBLE-BEE and HUMBLE-BEE, clearly onomatopoeic word-formations in the traditional sense)

- AR Similarly this means the associated action refers to the percept or thing to which the word related. For example, associated with the sound-structure NEEDLE is not a contour indicating the shape of a needle but the action of a needle used in sewing

- PA This means that the associated contour or action for a word has both a primary Pointing element as well as more a general action element. In the case of HAT, for example, there is a combination of a pointing action with an action of putting on or taking off a hat

- VA This means that there is a combination of a visual contour associated with the word and an element of action. For example, the word FLOWER appears to have associated with it both an indication of the general shape of a flower and of the action of plucking a flower

- SV This means that there is a combination of a sound and a visual element associated with the word-structure. For example, SAND has a sound associated with it of the sea-shore (no doubt part of the typical effect of the fricative S) as well as an indication by a visual contour of an extent or surface

- CVS this means that there appears to be a complex contour or action associated with the sound-structure of the particular word and that this complex includes visual and sound elements. This seems to be the case for DOG and BIRD, and it would not be surprising that this should be so since both the visual contour of a dog or bird and the sound that each of them makes are obvious clues to the nature of the thing perceived.

- CSA Similarly this means that the complex contour or gesture includes sound and action elements. An example, again an unsurprising one, is the word HEN, where the sound element seems to be primary

- ASR This means that the contour or action has both action and sound elements which refer to the percept or thing to which the word-structure relates. So the word SNAKE has both an action element related to the movement of a snake and a sound element (apparently deriving from what Firth described as the 'sibilant' phonetic quality of the initial S)

- I This means that the action or contour associated with the word refers to am internal state or activity. For example, the word BITTER has associated with it a mouth-action which relates to the reaction to a bitter taste

- PI This means that the action or contour associated with a word has both a pointing element and an internal state or activity which is referred to. For example, the word THINK has associated with it a Pointing to the head (a very familiar gesture) as well as an awareness of an internal state or activity

- IA This means that there is a combination of an internal state or activity and an external action, both represented in the sound-structure of the word. So LOVE has associated with it an internal state or activity and an external action of clasping or holding

- AI This means that the external action component seems to be more important than the internal state or activity. For example, in the case of the word CHOOSE, the external action seems to be one of picking between objects but there is also an internal awareness of the state or activity of choosing

- ? This means that so far applications of the equivalences and rules for the combination of elementary units described in Appendix II has not made it possible to arrive at any plausible identification of the contour or action &c associated with the structure of the particular word.

Following this explanation of the significance of the markings placed against each word in the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary, it is possible to make a number of supplementary points:

1.The classifications in terms of the associated visual contour or action apply in the same way to all the words in the list, regardless of whether or not they would normally be treated in grammatical terms as nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, adverbs or conjunctions, &c. So, the adjective HEAVY is marked AR - that is, the word has associated with it an action reference to the meaning of the word; similarly the noun PENCIL is also marked AR, again because it has an action associated with it referring to the use of a pencil (not a visual contour of a pencil). Again, the preposition TO is marked PA, that is it combines a pointing element and an action element referring to movement in a direction, just as, already indicated, the noun HAT is marked PA because the word-structure contains both a Pointing and an action element.

2. The main categories of contour or action associated with words in the list are clearly Visual, Pointing and Action with, not surprisingly, most of the V markings relating to Qualities and Shapes and Things, most of the P markings relating to body parts, prepositions and pronouns, and most of the A markings relating to movements and actions. But the divisions are by no means clear-cut. Some words with which one might, at first sight, expect to find associated visual contours. are, on examination, found to be indicated in other ways. For example, the sound-structure of FROG does not relate to a visual contour but to a combination of an action element and a sound element. The word HEAR has associated with it a pointing action, very similar to that associated with EAR. MEET as a word is marked VA, that is the word refers to a visual indication of meeting, not to an action.

3.The small selection of words relating to Time are of particular interest. Some time-words have associated with them a pointing element, pointing forward or backward, an obvious transfer from spatial reference to temporal reference. Others seem to involve action referring to the meaning of the time-word e.g. NOW is marked AR and seems to involve an action with the arm moving sharply to point straight upward, as distinct from THEN, also marked AR, where the arm moves similarly but to point forward from the vertical. It is difficult to decide whether time-words should be marked P or AR; they seem to refer to a temporal frame of reference modelled on a one-dimensional spatial frame of reference, so that points in time are distributed along an imaginary line

4. A small class of words, but an important one, is included in the list referring to internal states and activities. In these cases, it is not just an assumption that the sound-structures of the words make this kind of reference but it is proposed that the sound-structure of the words has a specific felt relation to the internal meaning of the words. Certainly this is likely to be the case for words referring to emotions which have associated with them changes of physical state e.g. SAD, GLAD, TIRED.

5. The class of interrogative words is somewhat difficult to categorise and they have been marked I?. Associated with words such as HOW WHY WHO seems to be a specific attitude, some particular internal state of organisation.

6. Also of interest, of course, are those words where so far it has not been possible to identify the contour, action, &c associated with the sound-structure of the word with any plausibility or confidence. Such words in the list include TIME SPACE COLOUR SHADOW SHAPE FORM SOON EARTH BY WITH AND OF AMONG IS, together with a miscellaneous collection of other more specific words DRY WET CLEAN DIRTY BEGIN LOSE WAIT BIT PIECE THING STOOL CHAIR CAR BOAT SOCK COAL ASH PAPER BUTTER SUGAR SALT SHEEP - with some more significant words such as MAN WOMAN BOY GIRL MOTHER FATHER BABY BROTHER SISTER ANIMAL. Perhaps most important of these are those words referring to family relationships &c, some of the functional words and some very general words TIME SPACE THING FORM SHAPE COLOUR. Further study is obviously needed of the possible implications of the sound-structures of these words.

7. Finally, in analysing the Primitive Vocabulary, it may be informative to sort out precisely how the words in the list divide up between the different categories of associated contour, action &c which have been identified above. Out of the 486 words in the list (including the doubtful cases), 128 refer to action as the sole element or an element in the natural character of the word, 132 to visual contour and 79 to pointing or showing the percept or thing referred to. If one adds together all the words where the sound-structure seems to indicate some form of action reference i.e. including items of pointing and showing, the total is 249, that is, more than half the words in the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary derive the naturalness of their meaning from some associated action, some reference to action. The corresponding figure for words where there is some kind of reference to visual contour is 144. Comparatively, words with some association with sound are rather few, 55 in total, and there are 26 words with some internal reference. From this analysis emerges the dominant role is played by action-patterns in determining the sound-structure of words found in the Primitive Vocabulary, and of course it must be remembered that even where a word is marked as associated with a visual contour, that contour in fact is formed either by a movement of the eyes in scanning the percept or by a representation of the visual shape in terms of movement of the arm and hand.

Examples drawn from the Primitive Vocabulary of the natural relation between the sound-structures of individual words and their meanings

Although the 500 or so words in the illustrative Primitive Vocabulary have been classified above in terms of the type of visual or action contour &c associated with the sound-structure of each individual word, very little has so far been said about the specific character of the visual or action contour associated with the sound structure of individual words (though a few incidental examples have been given). This concluding section of the present Annex explains more specifically for a substantial sample of words drawn from the Primitive Vocabulary the form taken by the visual or action contour derived from the sound-structure of individual words and serving to indicate or give a clue or cue to the meaning of the particular word. The sample of words selected comes from the different main categories which have already been described, that is, words where the associated visual or action contour relates to action directly pointing to or showing, to visual shape, to internal activity or state, to sound directly, to time aspects or to complex combinations of visual, sound and action contours.

The sample of words selected in these different categories are:

Action words

Of the 15 words in the list, 9 have as their meanings movements or actions (including 2 which relate to movement of body-parts, 4 which refer to arm-actions, 2 to whole-body actions and 1 to a complex action; of the remaining 6, 4 have as their meanings shapes and things (including one animate thing) and the remaining two include 1 preposition and 1 adjective. The actions associated with the words (and derived by the processes described in Chapter III from the combination of elementary speech-sounds in the structure of the word) are as follows:

YAWN The sounds in the word combine to form in fact the action of a yawn. The reader can test for himself that saying the word slowly and vigorously produces a movement of the mouth closely resembling a naturally-occurring yawn

LICK The combination of sounds in the word again is closely matched to the action of licking; as one says the word, the tongue in effect performs a licking movement

TOUCH Chapter III shows that associated with the sound T is a stretching of the arm; the combination of T with the other two sounds simply produces a stretching forward of the as in act of touching.

PUT Similarly the action resulting from combining the in the word on the basis given in Chapter III is simply that involved in extending one's arm to put something down, to place something

PUSH Again a very straightforward representation through the sounds in the word of the action of pushing something

HIT Simply an act of hitting, the arm-action involved in HIT partially resembling that involved in IT or HE (both of which involve forward pointing movements)

GO The word does not directly model the act of going but a forward and outward gesture of the hand clearly and usually meaning GO.

SEW The associated action is simply the normal act of drawing a needle up through material and outward in a curved line

NEEDLE An action very like sewing or threading an needle, not a representation of the shape of a needle

WORM An action which refers to the wriggling movement of a worm, not a direct representation of the visual contour

POINT This directly represents the action of pointing with the index finger (the action associated with POINT resembles that associated with PUT - as the sounds also are similar in the two words)

UP This has associated a movement of the arm, so that the forearm and hand point vertically upwards

MEET The significance of the VR associated with this is seen clearly in the movement of the two hands to come together, with palms facing each other in front of the body

SAME The movement for SAME is very similar to that for MEET, except that the hands, with palms facing each other, are a little further apart

HAMMER This straightforwardly represents the action of hammering, similar to the action of hitting

For all these words, the relation between the meaning of the word (the percept, thing, action) and the associated action, derived from the sounds going to form the word, is extremely plain and straightforward and convincing. As the explanation of the formation of the action-forms from the equivalent speech-elements shows, the correctness of the equivalences between action-elements and speech-elements given in Chapter III seems to be clearly established.

The same applies to the Pointing and Showing words which are next dealt with:

Pointing and Showing Words

EAR This is an extremely simple pointing gesture, with the hand held at the level of and quite close to the ear

HEAR Almost identical (as the sound is almost identical to that for EAR). There is some aspect of bringing the hand to the position near the ear which no doubt reflects the active quality of hearing.

EYE This is a straightforward action of pointing to the eye (note that the sounds of the words EYE And EAR are close together -something seen in other languages as well)

I Exactly the same as for EYE

HAND The action is simply the holding up of the hand with palm forward, to show the hand

HAIR This is a pointing gesture, with the hand held over the hair

THAT A simple pointing gesture towards a somewhat distant object

THE A less emphatic pointing gesture

A Very similar gesture to that for THE but slightly less marked

YOU A strong forward pointing with the forefinger

IT A less emphatic pointing gesture similar to YOU

There seems no difficulty with the equivalence between these words and the pointing or showing gestures associated with them. Perhaps the only thing that strikes one is how similar the pointing gestures associated with the different words are. In the case of YOU however as compared with IT, there seems a stronger and more emphatic aspect which perhaps almost amounts to an internal component so that YOU might be marked PI, rather than just P.

Both action and pointing are more clearly seen than the visual ones or words in the next list:

Visual words

EDGE A simple word, if one represents it as EJ. The movement of the arm simply follows the contour of an edge, a short horizontal movement turning down over the edge

CIRCLE The arm moves in a circle

HEAP The arm follows the contour of a heap of something, a convex curve

CUP The action associated with the arm held forward is a cupped hand

HOOK The arm is drawn down from above the head to follow the contour of a hook

LAMP The arm is held up above the head with the hand facing upward as though holding a lamp

ARCH The movement of the arm is very similar to that for HEAP, a convex curve, traced above the head

FALL The associated contour is similar to that for EDGE, to trace the course of an object thrown and falling

WIDE The arm movement indicates width by the arms being stretched out from the sides

NARROW The arm-movement is very similar to that for MEET and SAME , the position of the hands, brought together with palms facing in front of the body, being somewhat closer together than for SAME but less than for MEET. The meaning of the action associated with NARROW clearly contrasts with that associated with WIDE

THICK Again a similar arm-movement but the palms facing each other nearly the full body width apart

THIN Almost identical with the position for NARROW

HIGH Similar to the position for UP but with the arm stretched further upwards

CLAW The associated action results in the hands being held in a claw-shape

BOUGH The associated action is the arm stretched out to the side and somewhat forward and upward, resembling the outline of a limb of a tree (a tree of course also has a 'trunk' and a 'foot')

The illustrations for the next two classes, Internal and Sound, are less obvious than the preceding ones:

Internal Pointing Words

THINK The external aspect of the action associated with the word, is the hand being drawn in so as nearly to touch the upper forehead with the fingers placed together (a very usual gesture for thinking). Besides this, there seems to be an internal state or activity associated with the sounds forming the word. The action associated with THING seems to be very similar - so perhaps a THING is something thought (see Latin REOR - think and RES - thing)

KNOW Very similar position of the hand, in relation to the head, to that for THINK, with a somewhat different Internal component

ME The hand points towards the mouth or face, with an accompanying internal feeling (which is not apparent for I)

Sound words

THUNDER This has associated with it the making of a sound clearly meant to imitate the sound of thunder. See other straightforwardly onomatopoeic words such as DING DONG, BANG, WHIZZ (and onomatopoeic words for THUNDER in other languages eg. Malay GUNTOR)

CALL This involves stretching the arm forward and outward with the sound of a call (some relation to a clearly onomatopoeic word like CAW)

SPEAK Again the stretching of the hands forward is accompanied by voice-sound

CRACK This is a combination of an action (of breaking something) with a flat sound, like SMASH

Time aspects

NOW This is associated with a short upward movement of the hand indicating spatially a time-concept

THEN A movement similar to that associated with THERE but a shorter, forward indicating movement

WHEN A more emphatic movement than for THEN, apparently with some characteristic internal aspect, aspect of feeling, similar to that for other interrogative words

BEFORE A forward indicatory action, again as a result of transfer of reference from spatial position to temporal position

Complex words

BIRD Largely a sound-word but there is also an element of visual indication, perhaps of movement of the wings

HEN This seems to combine an indication of the characteristic sound made by a hen with action reflecting the equally characteristic movement of a hen

FIRE This combines an indication of the rushing sound of a fire, with an indication of flames rising

LAKE This combines an indication of an extent or stretch of space (of water) with some sound of wind, over water

RAIN This combines an indication of the sound of raindrops, with some visual indication of the lines of rain falling.

NB: It is much harder to be sure about the actions and shapes associated with the complex words in the Primitive Vocabulary, to describe them satisfactorily or to indicate clearly how the actions, sounds &c are formed as a result of the structure. of the words - but the broad indications given above seem , as an empirical matter, reasonably reliable. There is a whole field of study to be explored of how speech-sounds indicate or model but do not imitate obviously and simply types of sound other than speech-sounds. Many names of birds appear to indicate, in the sound-structure of the words, the characteristic cry or call of the bird - but not through direct imitation which would involve using types of sound outside the accepted range of human speech-sounds, that is the available set of phonemes.