common trait proves, however, that an original correspondence existed between what was holy and what was unclean, which only later became differentiated.
In contrast to this, our discussions readily show that the double meaning in question belonged to the word taboo from the very beginning and that it serves to designate a definite ambivalence as well as everything which has come into existence on the basis of this ambivalence. Taboo is itself an ambivalent word and by way of supplement, we may add that the established meaning of this word might of itself have allowed us to guess what we have found as the result of extensive investigation, namely, that the taboo prohibition is to be explained as the result of an emotional ambivalence. A study of the oldest languages has taught us that at one time there were many such words which included their own contrasts so that they were in a certain sense ambivalent, though perhaps not exactly in the same sense as the word taboo.[1] Slight vocal modifications of this primitive word containing two opposite meanings later served to create a separate linguistic expression for the two opposites originally united in one word.
- ↑ Compare my article on Abel’s “Gegensinn des Urworte” in the “Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen,” Bd. II, 1910.
