Not all languages are as irregular as English in the assignment of functions to its stock of grammatical processes. As a rule, such basic concepts as those of plurality and time are rendered by means of one or other method alone [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.59

A few [...] examples of the multiple expression of identical functions in other languages than English may help to make still more vivid this idea of the relative independence of form and function.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.59

[...] linguistic form may and should be studied as types of patterning, apart from the associated functions.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.60

[...] consonantal change in English [...] of 'book-s' and 'bag-s' ('s' in the former, 'z' in the latter) [...] is a purely external, mechanical change [...] This [...] is objectively the same as that between the noun house and the verb to house. In the latter case [...] it has an important grammatical function, that of transforming a noun into a verb.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.61

It depends entirely on the genius of the particular language what function is inherently involved in a given sequence of words.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.63

The word 'farmer' has an 'agentive' suffix '-er' that performs the function of indicating the one that carries out a given activity, in this case that of farming. It transforms the verb to farm into an agentive noun [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.85

Perhaps the most striking result of the analysis is a renewed realization of the curious lack of accord in our language between function and form.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.89