Hliad vi. 474. αὐτὰρ ὅγ' ὃν φίλον υἷον, lego αὐτὰρ ὁ Γόν. ᾤμωξέν τε καὶ ὣ πεπλήγετο μηρώ, lego ᾤμωξεν καὶ ἑὼ πεπλ. μ. ΧΙ. 330. οὐδὲ ἑοὺς παῖδας ἔασκε, lego οὐδὲ τούς (οι rather σφούς). Iliad XVII. 90, xv. 5, xx. 343. εἶπε πρὸς ὃν μεγαλήτορα θυ γάμον. Ως, tamquam. & αὐτὸς δέ, κτίλος ὥς, lego ψιλὸς ἐὼν ἐπιπωλεῖται, and in a note on the passage he says-Quot sunt in hoc versiculo peccata, licet ita citatus a vetere Scholiaste Nicandri, et Timone de Cleanthe apud Diogenem Laertium in Cleanth. τίς δ ̓ οὗτος, κτίλος ὥς, ἐπιπωλεῖται στίχας ἀνδρῶν. Primum ex Eolismo: oportet enim,ut semper ὡς “ sicut,” 66 Ex tamquam”—κτίλος Fos esse, metro repugnante. Quale vero illud "obit ordines virorum tamquam Aries"? Nondum vidi Arietem virorum ordines moderantem. Quæ vero ταυτολογία! “Obit, tamquam ARIES; et comparo eum ARIETI." ipsa sententia locum restituo. Versu priore dixerat, "Arma ejus humi posita sunt:" quorsum hoc, nisi ut inferret INERMEM eum obire ordines militum? Lego igitur αὐτὰρ ψιλὸς ἐὼν ἐπιπωλεῖται στίχας ἀνδρῶν. Sic δ, 230, simili orationis filo: et & 214: ἵππους μὲν γὰρ ἔασε καὶ ἅρματα ποικίλα χαλκῷ ἔγχος μὲν κατέπηξεν ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ, Ceterum nihil refert quod est αὐτὰρ ψιλός non ὁ ψιλός, ob asperitatem duplicis litera. Sic enim supra γ, 18, αὐτὰρ ὁ δοῦρε δύω: meliores ἐκδόσεις habuerunt sine articulo αὐτὰρ δοῦρε. It is hoped that these extracts will gratify any curiosity which may still be entertained with regard to the manner in which Bentley proposed to restore the digamma to the text of Homer. Q CHAPTER VI.. THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 123 Different arrangements of the parts of speech. 124 Their syntactical division derived from the Dialectic of Plato. 125 Aristotle's Categories considered with this reference. 126 Horne Tooke's fallacious use of the syntactical parts of speech. 127 The empirical arrangement is mainly syntactical. 128 The real etymological distribution of words. 123 IT T has been already mentioned more than once, that there are two divisions of philology, the etymological and the syntactical, and that it is of great importance to keep distinct these two departments. The distribution of words into the parts of speech, as they are called, has been a fruitful source of error to those philologers who have failed to observe that there are two distinct methods according to which this distribution may be effected, the one syntactical, and the other etymological; of which the former considers words only according to their distinction as parts of a logical proposition, while the latter analyzes the words themselves, and sets forth the primary elements from which the different kinds of words have sprung. There is a third method based on the former of the two which we have just mentioned; but as its object is merely to facilitate the acquirement of particular languages, and as it differs with those languages, it has never been thought worthy of discussion in formal treatises. We propose to examine the syntactical arrangement of the parts of speech, before we set forth that etymological distribution, according to which the investigations in the following pages are carried on. 124 The syntactical division of the parts of speech may be traced to the first beginnings of dialectic or logic, in other words, to Plato. The formation of a system of logic is, in fact, simply a discovery of the principles of syntax, or of the structure of sentences; for, as far as the reasoning faculty is concerned, logie is nothing but the nomenclature and method of the process which every man carries on in his discourse. Logic is conversant with the truth or falsehood of propositions and not with single words (Aristot. de Interpret. I.; Cicero, Tuscul. Disput. 1. 7; Aulus Gellius, XVI. 8). The first step, therefore, in logical analysis, is the division of a sentence or proposition into its fundamental parts. These fundamental parts we call the subject, copula, and predicate; in other words, the proposition must contain either a nominative case + verb-substantive + some predicate, or, a nominative case + (verb = verb-substantive + some predicate). Thus “I run” is equivalent to “I am running.” The Greek, however, does not make much use of the copula, the article being considered sufficient to distinguish the subject from the predicate; thus ὁ ἵππος λευκός is fully equivalent to ὁ ἵππος ἐστὶ λευκός. In by far the greater number of cases the Greek verb contains both copula and predicate. Accordingly, it was natural enough that, in analyzing the sentence into its primary elements, Plato should consider these as consisting simply of the noun (όνομα) and the verb (ρήμα) *, for as Plutarch observes (Quaestiones Platonica, p. 111 Wyttenb.): ῥήματος ὀνόματι συμπλεκομένου, τὸ γενόμενον εὐθὺς διάλεκτός ἐστι καὶ λόγος, and Apollonius Dyscolus says (de Syntaxi, p. 19 Bekker), that the noun and verb are τὰ ἐμψυχότατα μέρη του λόγου. Plato brings forward this division most directly in his Sophistes (p. 261 262 c): ἔστι γὰρ ἡμῖν που τῶν τῇ φωνῇ περὶ τὴν οὐσίαν δηλωμάτων διττόν γένος—τὸ μὲν ὀνόματα, το δὲ ῥήματα κληθέν—τὸ μὲν ἐπὶ ταῖς πράξεσιν ὂν δήλωμα ῥῆμά που λέγομεν τὸ δέ γ' ἐπ ̓ αὖ τοῖς ἐκεῖνα πράττουσι σημεῖον τῆς φωνῆς ἐπιτεθὲν ὄνομα. οὐκοῦν ἐξ ὀνομάτων μὲν μόνων συνεχῶς λεγομένων οὐκ ἔστι ποτὲ λόγος οὐδ ̓ αὖ ῥημάτων χωρὶς ὀνομάτων λεχθέντων-οὐδεμίαν γὰρ πρᾶξιν That the ancient Greeks did not make much distinction between ὄνομα and ῥῆμα, is clear from Thucydides, v. 111, where we find the words used as synonymous in an emphatic passage: ὀνόματος ἐπαγωγοῦ δυνάμει —ἡσσηθεῖσι τοῦ ῥήματος. We remark in passing that for ἣν ἔσται at the end of the chapter, we ought to read ην—ἵστατε. The MMS. have ἴστε and ἵσταται. Plato himself sometimes uses ὀνόματα and ῥήματα as synonyms; cf. Gorg. p. 489 Β: ὀνόματα θηρεύων. 489 Ε: ὀνόματα λέγεις. In the singular he uses τὸ ῥῆμα to signify common parlance : Resp. 340 D : λέγομεν τῷ ῥήματι οὕτως. p. 490: οὐ ῥήματα θηρεύω. 66 οὐδ ̓ ἀπραξίαν οὐδὲ οὐσίαν ὄντος οὐδὲ μὴ ὄντος δηλοῖ τὰ φωνηθέντα, πρὶν ἄν τις τοῖς ὀνόμασι τὰ ῥήματα κεράσῃ ̇ τότε δὲ ἥρμοσέ τε καὶ λόγος ἐγένετο εὐθὺς ἡ πρώτη συμπλοκή, σχέδον τῶν λόγων ὁ πρῶτος εἰ καὶ σμικρότατος. Ιt must be remarked on this passage, that Plato included in the word nua all that could be called a predicate or descriptive word, as distinguished from the subject or word of designation, namely the verb and the adjective as distinguished from the substantive; for he could not have overlooked the obvious fact, that in the Greek language a verb may alone constitute a whole sentence: thus, τρέχει means “he is running.” Similarly in the Cratylus (p. 431 Β), he speaks of falsifying the meaning of ὀνόματα and ῥήματα as the same process: εἴη ἂν καὶ ῥήματα ταὐτὸν τοῦτο ποιεῖν, and adds: εἰ δὲ ῥήματα καὶ ὀνόματα ἔστιν οὕτω τιθέναι, ἀνάγκη καὶ λόγους· λόγοι γάρ που, ὡς ἐγᾦμαι, ἡ τούτων ξύνθεσίς ἐστιν. That the adjective is regarded as predicable because it is generally descriptive is clear from another passage in the Cratylus, in which he says (p. 399 B), that we change Διΐ φίλος into Δίφιλος, ἵνα ἀντί ῥήματος ὄνομα ἡμῖν γένηται: for Δίφιλος is properly a subject, and diῒ φίλος is calculated to be a predicate. Some logicians according to Plutarch (Quaest. Platon. p. 108) substituted κατηγόρημα-“ predicable for ῥῆμα, in this division of the λόγος, or logical proposition, into its distinct parts. Did Plato make this division, he asks, ὅτι πρῶτον λόγον οἱ παλαιοί, τὴν τότε καλουμένην πρότασιν, νῦν δὲ ἀξίωμα, προσηγόρευον, ὃ πρῶτον λέγοντες ἀληθεύουσιν ἢ ψεύδονται; τοῦτο δὲ ἐξ ὀνόματος καὶ ῥήματος συνέστηκεν; ὧν τὸ μὲν πτῶ σιν οἱ διαλεκτικοί, τὸ δὲ κατηγόρημα καλοῦσιν. That this Platonic analysis of the sentence into its two main elements, the subject and predicate, was accepted as a sufficient classification of the parts of speech, is distinctly stated by the Pseudo-Apuleius (de dogmate Platonico, Lib. III. 267): “Ceterum est propositio, ut ait in Theaeteto [Sophista] Plato, duabus paucissimis orationis partibus constans nomine et verbo, ut: Apuleius disserit, quod aut verum aut falsum est, et ideo propositio. Unde quidam rati sunt has duas solas orationis partes esse, quod ex his solis fieri possit perfecta oratio, id est quod abunde sententiam comprehendant-Porro ex duabus prædictis partibus altera subjectiva nominatur velut sub dita, ut Apuleius; altera declarativa ut: Disserit vel Non disserit, declarat enim quid faciat Apuleius." 125 Aristotle, following in the steps of his master, adopted the same division of the parts of a sentence. He says (de Interpretatione, c. 1-5): πρῶτον δεῖ θέσθαι τί ὄνομα καὶ τί ῥῆμα, ἔπειτα τί ἐστιν ἀπόφασις καὶ κατάφασις καὶ ἀπόφανσις καὶ λόγος—τὰ μὲν οὖν ὀνόματα αὐτὰ καὶ τὰ ῥήματα ἔοικε τῷ ἄνευ συνθέσεως καὶ διαιρέσεως νοήματι οἷον τὸ ἄνθρωπος ἢ τὸ λευκόν.—ὄνομα μὲν οὖν ἐστὶ φωνη σημαντικὴ κατὰ συνθήκην ἄνευ χρόνου ἧς μηδὲν μέρος ἐστὶ σημαν τικὸν κεχωρισμένον—ῥῆμα δέ ἐστι τὸ προσσημαῖνον χρόνον, οὗ μέρος οὐδὲν σημαίνει χωρίς, καὶ ἔστιν ἀεὶ τῶν καθ' ἑτέρου λεγομένων σημεῖον-λόγος δέ ἐστι φωνὴ σημαντικὴ κατὰ συνθήκην ἧς τῶν μερῶν τι σημαντικόν ἐστι κεχωρισμένον ὡς φάσις, ἀλλ ̓ οὐχ ὡς κατάφασις ἢ ἀπόφασις ἔστι δὲ εἷς πρῶτος λόγος ἀποφαντικός και τάφασις, εἶτα ἀπόφασις· οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι πάντες συνδέσμω εἷς. Here again it is clear that λόγος is the logical proposition, ὄνομα the subject, and oñua the predicate" the sign of things predicated of another thing;"—and that the oñua includes adjectives as well as verbs, appears, as well from this place in which λɛuxóv is given as an instance of a ῥῆμα, as from another passage in the same treatise (c. 14): με τατιθέμενα τὰ ὀνόματα καὶ τὰ ῥήματα ταὐτὸν σημαίνει, οἷον ἔστι λευκὸς ἄνθρωπος, ἔστιν ἄνθρωπος λευκός. The ῥῆμα is a predicate broken off from an actual sentence, and it is only in this opposition that it gets its distinctive name: otherwise it is merely an ovoua as Aristotle says de Interpret. c. 3): αὐτὰ μὲν οὖν καθ' ἑαυτὰ λεγόμενα τὰ ῥήματα ὀνόματά ἐστι*. The philosopher has ex This passage alone is sufficient to justify Ammonius from the criticisms of Mr. Mansel, who says (in an article which he has elsewhere acknowledged, North British Review, Vol. χιν. p. 53): “Ammonius, commenting on De Interpretatione, chap. 1, supposes that Aristotle includes under the name of verb an adjective in the predicate of the proposition, i. e. the mere expression of an attribute without assertion; and this has led Harris to speak of the 'verb in its most comprehensive signification, as including not only verbs properly so called, but participles and adjectives.' But the explanation is erroneous. The ῥῆμα of Aristotle has one uniform signification, that of a combination of attribute and assertion—the predicate and copula united. In the passage misunderstood by Ammonius, the word λευκόν is, by a common idiom, put for λευκόν ἐστι.” With all his acuteness Mr. Mansel has failed to observe that, according to the Greek writers on logic and grammar, the nua has no predicative value except in the συμπλοκή with the ὄνομα as subject; and the use of the definite article, which limits the latter, enabled the Greeks to dispense with the copula whenever the predicable word was sufficiently distributed; especially in the case of those expressious which were calculated of themselves to be used as adverbs or secondary predicates. |