We know that it is impossible to set up a limited number of types

that would do full justice to the peculiarities of thousands of languages 【M1】________

and dialects spoken on the surface of the earth. Like all human

institutions, speech is too variable and too elusive to be quite safely

ticketed. Even if we operate with a minutely subdivided scale of types,

we may be quite certain that many of our languages will need trim before 【M2】________

they fit. To get them into the scheme at all it will be necessary to

underestimate the significance of this or that feature or to ignore, for 【M3】________

the time being, certain contradictions in their mechanism. It would be

too easy to relieve ourselves from the burden of constructional thinking 【M4】________

and to take the standpoint that each language has its unique history,

therefore its unique structure. Such a standpoint expresses only a half

truth. Just as similar social, economic, and religious institutions have

grown up in different parts of the world from distinct historical

antecedents, so also languages, travel along different roads, have tended 【M5】_________

to converge toward similar forms. Moreover, the historical study of

language has proven to us beyond all doubt that a language changes not

only gradually but consistently, that it moves unconsciously from one

type towards others, and that analogous trends are observable in remote 【M6】_________

quarters of the globe. From this it follows that broadly similar study

must not have been reached by unrelated languages, independently and 【M7】_________

frequently. In assuming the existence of comparable types, however, we 【M8】_________

are not denying the individuality of all historical processes; we are

merely affirming that back off the face of history is powerful drifts that 【M9】_________

move language, like other social products, to balance patterns. 【M10】_________

【M6】