Every independent word can perform the function of a verb, and every verbal form can in its turn be used as a noun or adjective." [107] And of the Dravidian languages he says: "The genitive of ordinary nouns is in reality an adjective, and the difference between nouns and adjectives is of no great importance ...

Many cases are both nouns and verbs.

Nouns of agency are very commonly used as verbs." [108] Thus if it be admitted that nouns preceded verbs as parts of speech, which will hardly be disputed, these passages show how the semi-abstract adjectives and verbs were gradually formed from the names of concrete nouns.

Of the language of the now extinct Tasmanian aborigines it is stated: "Their speech was so imperfectly constituted that there was no settled order or arrangement of words in the sentence, the sense being eked out by face, manner and gesture, so that they could scarcely converse in the dark, and all intercourse had to cease with nightfall.

Abstract forms scarcely existed, and while every gum-tree or wattle-tree had its name, there was no word for 'tree' in general, nor for qualities such as hard, soft, hot, cold, etc.