Therefore, not unduly to multiply quotations, we may take it as the now established doctrine of philology that, as even this more sceptical authority puts it, “Grammar has grown out of gesture and gesticulation.”[237] Later on I will show in how interesting a manner early forms of articulate utterance follow in their structure the language of gesture already treated of in a previous chapter. It was for the sake of displaying this resemblance that I there occupied so much space with the syntax of gesture-language; and, therefore, it will now be my object to trace the family likeness between the constructions of primitive modes of utterance, and those of the parent gestures from which these constructions have been directly inherited. But in order to do this more completely, we must first consider the philology of predicative words. The parts of speech which are primarily concerned in predication, and which, therefore, may be called _par excellence_ predicative words, are substantives, adjectives, and verbs. I will, therefore, begin by briefly stating what is known touching the evolution of these parts of speech. We have abundant evidence to show that originally there was no distinction between substantives and adjectives, or object-words and quality-words. Nor is this at all surprising when we remember that even in fully developed forms of speech one and the same word may stand as a substantive or an adjective according to its context. “Cannon” in “cannonball,” or “pocket” in “pocket-book,” &c., are adjectives in virtue of position—_i.e._ of _apposition_ with the substantives which they thus serve to qualify.