evolution by transfer is traceable in many instances.  Thus, the of in an English phrase like “the law of the land” is now as colorless in content, as purely a relational indicator as the “genitive” suffix _-is_ in the Latin lex urbis “the law of the city.”  We know, however, that it was originally an adverb of considerable concreteness of meaning,[85] “away, moving from,” and that the syntactic relation was originally expressed by the case form[86] of the second noun.  As the case form lost its vitality, the adverb took over its function.  If we are actually justified in assuming that the expression of all syntactic relations is ultimately traceable to these two unavoidable, dynamic features of speech—­sequence and stress[87]—­an interesting thesis results:—­All of the actual content of speech, its clusters of vocalic and consonantal sounds, is in origin limited to the concrete; relations were originally not expressed in outward form but were merely implied and articulated with the help of order and rhythm.  In other words, relations were intuitively felt and could only “leak out” with the help of dynamic factors that themselves move on an intuitional plane.

[Footnote 83:  By “originally” I mean, of course, some time antedating the earliest period of the Indo-European languages that we can get at by comparative evidence.]

[Footnote 84:  Perhaps it was a noun-classifying element of some sort.]

[Footnote 85:  Compare its close historical parallel off.]

[Footnote 86:  “Ablative” at last analysis.]

[Footnote 87:  Very likely pitch should be understood along with stress.]

There is a special method for the expression of relations that has been so often evolved in the history of language that we must glance at it for a moment.  This is the method of “concord” or of like signaling.  It is based on the same principle as the password or label.  All persons or objects that answer to the same counter-sign or that bear the same imprint are thereby stamped as somehow related.  It makes little difference, once they are so stamped, where they are to be found or how they behave themselves.  They are known to belong together.  We are familiar with the principle of concord in Latin and Greek.  Many of us have been struck by such relentless rhymes as vidi ilium bonum dominum “I saw that good master” or quarum dearum saevarum “of which stern goddesses.”  Not that sound-echo, whether in the form of rhyme or of alliteration[88] is necessary to concord, though in its most typical and original forms concord is nearly always accompanied by sound repetition.  The essence of the principle is simply this, that words (elements) that belong together, particularly if they are syntactic equivalents or are related in like fashion to another word or element, are outwardly marked by the same or functionally equivalent affixes.  The application of the principle varies considerably according to the genius of the particular language.  In Latin and Greek, for instance, there is concord between noun and qualifying word (adjective or demonstrative) as regards gender, number, and case, between verb and subject only as regards number, and no concord between verb and object.