There can be little doubt that stress has frequently played a controlling influence in the formation of element-groups or complex words out of certain sequences in the sentence.  Such an English word as withstand is merely an old sequence with stand, i.e., “against[80] stand,” in which the unstressed adverb was permanently drawn to the following verb and lost its independence as a significant element.  In the same way French futures of the type irai “(I) shall go” are but the resultants of a coalescence of originally independent words:  ir[81] a’i “to-go I-have,” under the influence of a unifying accent.  But stress has done more than articulate or unify sequences that in their own right imply a syntactic relation.  Stress is the most natural means at our disposal to emphasize a linguistic contrast, to indicate the major element in a sequence.  Hence we need not be surprised to find that accent too, no less than sequence, may serve as the unaided symbol of certain relations.  Such a contrast as that of go’ between ("one who goes between”) and to go between’ may be of quite secondary origin in English, but there is every reason to believe that analogous distinctions have prevailed at all times in linguistic history.  A sequence like see’ man might imply some type of relation in which see qualifies the following word, hence “a seeing man” or “a seen (or visible) man,” or is its predication, hence “the man sees” or “the man is seen,” while a sequence like see man’ might indicate that the accented word in some way limits the application of the first, say as direct object, hence “to see a man” or “(he) sees the man.”  Such alternations of relation, as symbolized by varying stresses, are important and frequent in a number of languages.[82]

[Footnote 80:  For with in the sense of “against,” compare German wider “against.”]

[Footnote 81:  Cf.  Latin ire “to go”; also our English idiom “I have to go,” i.e., “must go.”]

[Footnote 82:  In Chinese no less than in English.]

It is a somewhat venturesome and yet not an altogether unreasonable speculation that sees in word order and stress the primary methods for the expression of all syntactic relations and looks upon the present relational value of specific words and elements as but a secondary condition due to a transfer of values.  Thus, we may surmise that the Latin _-m_ of words like feminam, dominum, and civem did not originally[83] denote that “woman,” “master,” and “citizen” were objectively related to the verb of the proposition but indicated something far more concrete,[84] that the objective relation was merely implied by the position or accent of the word (radical element) immediately preceding the _-m_, and that gradually, as its more concrete significance faded away, it took over a syntactic function that did not originally belong to it.  This sort of