Owen — Revision of Pronouns. 67 



XX. PSEUDOBELATIVES. 



The fact that a linguistic implement was elected to serve a 

 given purpose does not always save it from being put to other 

 uses. In "Is your horse a trotter? He is that/' the word 

 "that" is plainly vicarious. In "The horse that I bought is a 

 trotter," it is quite as plainly relative. This change of value is 

 so frequent as to obtain a general recognition. Its converse, 

 overlooked so far as I have noted, may be illustrated as follows : 

 Closing a geometrical demonstration, I say that "A B equals 

 C D, which was to be proven." In this expression "which" 

 informs you that the whole thought embodied in "A B equals 

 C D" is subject of "was to be proven." That is, the simul- 

 taneous factor of two thoughts is so extended as to become the 

 whole of the first. Except for this common extension, "which" 

 is a normal relative. I am a2)t, however, to express myself 

 as follows: "A B equals C D. Quod erat demonstrandum." 

 That is, I force the "quod" or "which" to perform (or perhaps, 

 in view of the history of the word, I should say it continues to 

 perform) the symbolizing office usually assigned to "this" or 

 "that." In other words "which" is in this case not relative at 

 all, but pseudorelative and, in particular, vicarious and of the 

 retrospective type. 



Much rarer is the correspondent use of "which" in the antici- 

 pative aspect. To illustrate, "Which I rise to remark — ^^and my 

 language is plain — that, for ways that are dark and for tricks 

 that are vain, the heathen Chinee is peculiar." It is indeed pos- 

 sible to construe this sentence as merely inverted and equivalent 

 to "The Chinee is peculiar, which I rise to remark." But 

 abundant similar cases suggest that probably the meaning is 

 rather as follows : "I rise to remark this : the Chinee is pecul- 

 iar." That is, "which," as above, is vicariously used, but this 

 time in the anticipative aspect. 



The reinstative use of the relative seems to be growing in 

 favor. Its very infrequency makes it felt to be a relative out 

 of place, or rather a relative whose place is out. That is, being 

 taken as relative, the hearer feels that it should not be preceded 

 by an expressional break. Thus, having said "This is Miss X'* 

 and having let my sentence end, if I continue with "Whom I am 



