ngular _sings_).

The truth of the matter is that _sing_ is a kind of twilight word,
trembling between the status of a true radical element and that of a
modified word of the type of _singing_. Though it has no outward sign to
indicate that it conveys more than a generalized idea, we do feel that
there hangs about it a variable mist of added value. The formula A does
not seem to represent it so well as A + (0). We might suspect _sing_ of
belonging to the A + (b) type, with the reservation that the (b) had
vanished. This report of the "feel" of the word is far from fanciful,
for historical evidence does, in all earnest, show that _sing_ is in
origin a number of quite distinct words, of type A + (b), that have
pooled their separate values. The (b) of each of these has gone as a
tangible phonetic element; its force, however, lingers on in weakened
measure. The _sing_ of _I sing_ is the correspondent of the Anglo-Saxon
_singe_; the infinitive _sing_, of _singan_; the imperative _sing_ of
_sing_. Ever since the breakdown of English forms that set in about the
time of the Norman Conquest, our language has been straining towards the
creation of simple concept-words, unalloyed by formal connotations, but
it has not yet succeeded in this, apart, possibly, from isolated adverbs
and other elements of that sort. Were the typical unanalyzable word of
the language truly a pure concept-word (type A) instead of being of a
strangely transitional type (type A + [0]), our _sing_ and _work_ and
_house_ and thousands of others would compare with the genuine
radical-words of numerous other languages.[3] Such a radical-word, to
take a random example, is the Nootka[4] word _hamot_ "bone." Our English
correspondent is only superficially comparable. _Hamot_ means "bone" in
a quite indefinite sense; to our English word clings the notion of
singularity. The Nootka Indian can convey the idea of plurality, in one
of several ways, if he so desires, but he does not need to; _hamot_ may
do for either singular or plural, should no interest happen to attach to
the distinction. As soon as we say "bone" (aside from its secondary
usage to indicate material), we not merely specify the nature of the
object but we imply, whether we will or no, that there is but one of
these objects to be considered. And this increment of value makes all
the difference.

[Footnote 3: It is not a question of the general isolating character of
such languages as Chinese (see Chap