Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/608

590 at the breakfast-table) became in her mouth something not easily distinguished from pá pá. This may perhaps account for her unwillingness to take up the new name.

Ba or bö, book.

"More," or rather má, often prolonged to mâ-a or mo-a—to ask for more of some food, etc., or to ask for any action that pleased her to be repeated. This word enabled her to form an approach to a sentence: thus, ''má. . . má má'' ("more, mama").

Tá tá (taught her as the usual baby word for good-by, but extended by herself); always distinguished from the single tá noted above. Tá tá not only is used to say good-by, but expresses the general idea of going out-of-doors. Thus she says tá tá to her perambulator, and on seeing one take up a hat or overcoat.

A final nasal sound is now produced: she tries to say "down," what she does say being roughly dáõ—take me down from my chair—a very frequent request, as she can by this time walk easily, and is fond of running about the room.

The vocabulary is now increasing fast, and almost any word proposed to the child is imitated with some real effort at correctness. The range of articulate sounds is still very limited: a, á, i (short and long) are the only vowels fully under command; á occurs in a few words, and is the usual result of attempts to form o: thus, nâ—nose. The long sound of English i (ai) cannot be pronounced; when she tries to imitate it she says iá or i-a. No approach is yet made to the peculiar English short sound of a in such words as hat, bat. Of consonants g, l, r (the true consonant initial sound; the final semi-vowel, as in more, poor, is easy enough to her), and sibilants, aspirates, and palatals, are not yet mastered. "Guy" (a younger cousin's name) is called dá, or perhaps rather dá, the d or d produced far back and apparently with effort; k is also produced far back in the mouth, with an approach to t. Final consonants are seldom or never given, and the vocabulary is essentially monosyllabic, the only exceptions being in the nature of proper names ("baby,"; ná-ni, ná-ná), and even these are reduplicated monosyllables rather than dissyllables proper. She once said "lady" pretty well, but did not take it into use. No construction is yet attempted; the first approach to a sentence above noted has not been repeated. Even with these resources the child already contrives to express a good deal, filling up the meaning of her syllables with a great variety of tone, and also with inarticulate interjections. Impatience, satisfaction, disappointment, amusement, are all very well marked; and perhaps even intellectual dissent (in the case of "zebra" and "gee-gee," see above).

After this time (viz., her eighteenth birthday, reckoning birthdays by calendar months, as for this purpose is convenient) the child's progress became much more rapid, and it would not have been possible to take down all her new words without giving much more and more continuous attention than I had at my disposal. I also doubt if anything