peated, e.g., _gyat_ "person,"
_gyigyat_ "people." A second method is the use of certain characteristic
prefixes, e.g., _an'on_ "hand," _ka-an'on_ "hands"; _wai_ "one paddles,"
_lu-wai_ "several paddle." Still other plurals are formed by means of
internal vowel change, e.g., _gwula_ "cloak," _gwila_ "cloaks." Finally,
a fourth class of plurals is constituted by such nouns as suffix a
grammatical element, e.g., _waky_ "brother," _wakykw_ "brothers."

From such groups of examples as these--and they might be multiplied _ad
nauseam_--we cannot but conclude that linguistic form may and should be
studied as types of patterning, apart from the associated functions. We
are the more justified in this procedure as all languages evince a
curious instinct for the development of one or more particular
grammatical processes at the expense of others, tending always to lose
sight of any explicit functional value that the process may have had in
the first instance, delighting, it would seem, in the sheer play of its
means of expression. It does not matter that in such a case as the
English _goose_--_geese_, _foul_--_defile_, _sing_--_sang_--_sung_ we
can prove that we are dealing with historically distinct processes,
that the vocalic alternation of _sing_ and _sang_, for instance, is
centuries older as a specific type of grammatical process than the
outwardly parallel one of _goose_ and _geese_. It remains true that
there is (or was) an inherent tendency in English, at the time such
forms as _geese_ came into being, for the utilization of vocalic change
as a significant linguistic method. Failing the precedent set by such
already existing types of vocalic alternation as _sing_--_sang_--_sung_,
it is highly doubtful if the detailed conditions that brought about the
evolution of forms like _teeth_ and _geese_ from _tooth_ and _goose_
would have been potent enough to allow the native linguistic feeling to
win through to an acceptance of these new types of plural formation as
psychologically possible. This feeling for form as such, freely
expanding along predetermined lines and greatly inhibited in certain
directions by the lack of controlling types of patterning, should be
more clearly understood than it seems to be. A general survey of many
diverse types of languages is needed to give us the proper perspective
on this point. We saw in the preceding chapter that every language has
an inner phonetic system of definite pattern. We now learn t