All languages have expressions to indicate causation, whereby a process is depicted as having been set in motion by some external actor. In some languages, causation is expressed morphologically, through inflections that change verbs into their causative forms.

What happens when you change your name?

Barbara was once Eleanor.

Was she always both names? When she became Barbara, did the Eleanor part of her simply switch off, like suppressed genetic information?

Nobody believes her discoveries. Her fellow scientists have no precedent for her independence of thought. It’s confusing to them, how she revels in working alone.

She does not work alone. She works with Eleanor.

Barbara studies gene sequences in Indian corn.

Eleanor studies morpheme sequences in Indian languages.

At the end of each working day, they share a cigarette and discuss their findings.

One evening Eleanor describes the causative morpheme in Navajo. It consists of one phoneme only; it would be easy to miss. A linguistic element smaller than a syllable can change a verb from ‘it’s moving’ to ‘he’s making it move’.

Barbara describes her revelations about the variegated patterns on the maize kernels she’s cultivated. The microscope has revealed to her highly-tuned vision the regulator genes that move about on chromosomes, activating or suppressing certain sequences.

‘Bits of information that activate the expression of a new meaning,’ Eleanor says. ‘A causative.’

The weight of their parallel discoveries lands on them simultaneously, like a crow settling on a snow-covered branch.

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