Let no one be frightened at the idea of studying a Chinese grammar. Those who can take an interest in the secret springs of the mind, in the elements of pure reason, in the laws of thought, will find a Chinese grammar most instructive, most fascinating. It is the faithful photograph of man in his leading-strings, trying the muscles of his mind, groping his way, and so delighted with his first successful grasps that he repeats them again and again. It is child’s play, if you like, but it displays, like all child’s play, that wisdom and strength which are perfect in the mouth of babes and sucklings. Every shade of thought that finds expression in the highly finished and nicely balanced system of Greek tenses, moods, and particles can be expressed, and has been expressed, in that infant language by words that have neither prefix nor suffix, no terminations to indicate number, case, tense, mood, or person. Every word in Chinese is monosyllabic, and the same word, without any change of form, may be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, or a particle. Thus _ta_, according to its position in a sentence, may mean great, greatness, to grow, very much, very.[5] And here a very important observation has been made by Chinese grammarians, an observation which, after a very slight modification and expansion, contains indeed the secret of the whole growth of language from Chinese to English. If a word in Chinese is used with the _bonâ fide_ signification of a noun or a verb, it is called a _full word_ (_shi-tsé_); if it is used as a particle or with a merely determinative or formal character, it is called an _empty word_ (_hiu-tsé_[6]). There is as yet no outward difference between full and empty words in Chinese, and this renders it all the more creditable to the grammarians of China that they should have perceived the inward distinction, even in the absence of any outward signs. Let us learn then from Chinese grammarians this great lesson, that words may become empty, and without restricting the meaning of empty words as they do, let us use that term in the most general sense, as expressive of the fact that words may lose something of their full original meaning. Let us add to this another observation, which the Chinese could not well have made, but which we shall see confirmed again and again in the history of language, viz.: that empty words, or, as we may also call them, dead words, are most exposed to phonetic decay. It is clear then that, with these two preliminary observations, we can imagine three conditions of language:--