ABSTRACT
It seems plain then, wherever we look, that from the time of savage man the advance in material culture has accompanied an increase in the vocabulary of language, a decrease in the proportion of verbs, and an increase first in the nouns, then in the adjectives, and then — mainly from the middle of the Pre-Industrial Age — in the adverbs. The authors have inferred that the unending process of change in the proportions of the functional parts of language is also the process of development of the intellect. New words could originate in one of two ways. First, each could be a new word with the new meaning, whilst being different in form from any word already existing in the language. Even today, to be accepted by a community, a word must, as we said, be of an approved form, sounding well in the public ear; and its meaning must sit plainly upon it.
