78 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



XXIII. LINGUISTIC RANK OF RELATIVES. 



Answering now the question raised in the second paragraph 

 of this chapter, I find that the relative not only lacks the vicar- 

 ious powers which would give it rank as a pronoun proper, but 

 also is so weak in symbolizing any part of a thought, that it can- 

 not even rank as what is ordinarily meant by a word. To its 

 centrally intended exhibition of a thought-factor's thought-mem- 

 bership it sometimes adds, it is true, the indication of accessory 

 ideas such as gender, number and case relations expressible by 

 prepositions. But even in these bona fide idea-symbolizations it 

 does that only which is done by forms regarded as mere infleo- 

 tions and not at all as words. Barring the accident of formal 

 isolation, the relative is characterized as an idea-namer by noth- 

 ing which does not characterize the endings of victoris, vic' 

 tricis and victorum. With these then it should strictly rank. 

 Or if it be insisted that "whose," for instance, contains what is 

 expressed by -"of" and that "of" is a word, it may be conceded 

 that the "se" of "whose" is a word, but not the remainder. 

 Apart from such occasional idea-naming, the relative is quite 

 analogous to the isolated infinitive signs to, zu, a and de. These 

 I should personally not invest with the rank of proper words, to 

 give, zu geben, and a donner being but so many split synonyms 

 of donare. 



XXIV. RELATIVE TERMINOLOGY. 



The view of the relative thus far upheld presents it as a mere 

 inflection, distinguished from others by its isolation. These 

 others, which have abrogated their formal independence, may, 

 with some extension of a grammatical figure of speech, be de- 

 scribed as leaning upon the words which they inflect, sometimes 

 at the front and sometimes at the rear. They may, that is, be 

 ranked as, in a larger sense, proclitics and enclitics. In con- 

 trast to these, the function-sigTis which maintain their isolation 

 may be known as aclitics or inflections which do not lean. 



Again the incorporated inflection is known, according to its 

 place in word-formation, as prefix, infix or suffix. Analogously 

 the isolated sign of an idea's function might be called, when 



