The Origins of Speech

When the ideas of men began to extend and multiply, they labored to devise more numerous signs and a more extensive language. Men at length bethought themselves of substituting for them the articulations of voice which without having the same relation to any determinant object are fitter to represent all our ideas. We must allow that the words first made use of by men had in their minds a much more extensive signification than those employed in languages of some standing. They first gave every word the meaning of an entire proposition. When afterwards they began to perceive the difference between the subject and attribute, and between verb and noun, it required no mean effort of genius.