g., earlier than
the fourth month. Again, all children which hear but do not yet speak,
thus repeat many words without understanding them, and conversely,
understand many words without being able to repeat them. Such facts
lead Professor Preyer to suggest a somewhat elaborate _schema_ of
the mechanism of speech, both on its physiological and psychological
aspects; but this _schema_ we have not sufficient space to reproduce.
Although the formation of ideas is not at first, or even for a
considerable time, dependent on speech (any more than it is in the case
of the lower animals), it constitutes the condition to the learning of
speech, and afterward speech reacts upon the development of ideation. A
child may and usually does imitate the sounds of animals as names of the
animals which make them long before it can speak one word, and, so far
as Preyer's evidence goes, interjections are all originally imitative
of sounds. Children with a still very small vocabulary use words
metaphorically, as "tooth-heaven" to signify the upper gums, and it is
a mistake to suppose that the first words in a child's vocabulary are
invariably noun-substantives, as distinguished from adjectives or even
verbs.
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