[...] a Nootka word [...] as 'when, as they say, he had been absent for four days' might be expected to embody at least three radical elements [...] the radical element conveys the idea of 'four,' the notions of 'day' and 'absent' being expressed by suffixes that are as inseparable from the radical nucleus of the word [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.65

[...] there is a rather important psychological distinction between a language that settles the formal status of a radical element before announcing it [...] and one that begins with the concrete nucleus of a word and defines the status of this nucleus by successive limitations [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.127