a-general-introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud

tone of voice and by accompanying gestures, in writing by the addition of socalled
determinatives, that is, by a picture that was itself not meant to be
expressed. Accordingly, if ken meant strong, the picture of an erect little man
was placed after the alphabetical signs, if ken, weak, was meant, the picture
of a cowering man followed. Only later, by slight modifications of the original
word, were two designations developed for the opposites which it denoted. In
this way, from ken meaning both strong and weak, there was derived a ken,
strong, and a ken, weak. It is said that not only the most primitive languages
in their last developmental stage, but also the more recent ones, even the
living tongues of to-day have retained abundant remains of this primitive
opposite meaning. Let me give you a few illustrations of this taken from C.
Abel (1884).
In Latin there are still such words of double meaning:
altus—high, deep, and sacer, sacred, accursed.
As examples of modifications of the same root, I cite:
clamare—to scream, clam—quiet, still, secret;
siccus—dry, succus—juice.
And from the German:
Stimme—voice, stumm—dumb.
The comparison of related tongues yields a wealth of examples:
English: lock; German: Loch—hole, Lücke—gap.
English: cleave; German: kleben—to stick, to adhere.
The English without, is to-day used to mean "not with"; that "with" had the
connotation of deprivation as well as that of apportioning, is apparent from
the compounds: withdraw, withhold. The German wieder, again, closely
resembles this.
Another peculiarity of dream-work finds it prototype in the development of
language. It occurred in ancient Egyptian as well as in other later languages
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