102 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



adjunct of "button/*' wliich is part of an adjunct of ^"ransack," 

 which is part of an adjunct of "sent;" or, roughly speaking, 

 "trousers/' in the above membership, is in the fourth degree 

 adjunctive to "sent/' That all of this intricate relative clause, 

 except "trousers," is however used as a restricter of "trousers," 

 is indicated by the fact that popular arrangement juxtaposes 

 "trousers" with the gathered troop of its fellows, thus : "Bring 

 me the trousers (which) you were sent to ransack the shops to 

 find a button for the pocket of." 



Generalizing on cases examined, I contrast the restrictive 

 clause again with the informational, noting that the procedure 

 of the restrictive clause is this : By means of terms associated 

 with a term occurring in the principal, it occasions an adapta- 

 tion of that term, in scope, to its associates. 



(5) Its Function. 



E-eviving the substance of (2), I note that the restrictive is 

 a mere auxiliary. It always determines an otherwise inadequate 

 element of the principal clause. It is not in itself a speech, 

 but a "part of speech." What part of speech it is depends in 

 grammatical classifiv^ation, largely at least, upon Avhat part of 

 speech that element is which it determines. But such elements 

 themselves are classilied as parts of speech by conflicting criteria 

 (see p. 2). Also, in the exposition of Grammar, many restrict- 

 ive uses of the relative clause are overlooked.^ To state the 

 functions of restrictive clauses in ,2;rammatical phraseology, 

 that is, to rank them as parts of speech, is largely, therefore, to 

 arrange what Grammar has not seen by categories which Gram- 

 mar cannot justify. To be consistent, then, v/ith the grammati- 

 cal system thus far developed, would be like solving on a larger 

 scale the kill-joy problem: "If a third of six were three, what 

 would a fourth of twentv be ?" That is, the extension of the 

 grammatical system must be conformed in error to the parts 

 already developed. From a task so embarrassing and also, I 

 think, so needless, it is perhaps no shame to recoil. Assuming 



*Thus, in "A government of the people in the sense which you employ in 

 'if the doctrine be of God,' " the relative clause is adjunctive to "sense ;" and 

 "in the sense" is itself adjunctive to "of" (1) ; that is, the restrictive clause is 

 adjunctive in the second degree to a proposition. 



