Owen — Eevlsio7i of Fronouns. 47 



Suppose now you say ^Tlie sun exceeds the moon," or "is be- 

 hind the moon." You give me now not only two ideas, but also 

 a relation between them ; in other words, I know that you have 

 made a mental journey, where it began, where it ended, and, 

 most important of all, your impressions by the w^ay. You re- 

 veal in short a complete experience. Such alone is worth the 

 effort of telling and that of learning.^ 



Such an experience, commonly called a thought, consists of 

 two ideas and their relation. Its expression does not always con- 

 tain a special word for each of its terms. Something is oft^i 

 left to inference. Extra-linguistic aid, for instance that of 

 gesture, is sometimes invoked. The sam.e word even may sim- 

 ultaneously stand for more than one thought-factor. But, how- 

 ever expression be effected, if it be indeed effected, these three 

 elements of thought, a pair of ideas and their relation, all 

 are present. Xothing less w^ll answer. Given "The sun 

 exceeds the moon," if a single term be omitted, the value of 

 the remainder to a receiving mind is essentially nil. !Nor 

 wdll anv substitute suffice. "The sun, the comet, the moon" 



*J 7 7 



is worthless ; so also is "The sun exceeds equals" ; the same would 

 be true of anv other variation from the combination described 

 as a thou£:ht, that namelv of two ideas and their relation. ISToth- 

 ing less indeed is attempted by speech.^ This total then may 

 be recognized as the lingaiistic minimum and therefore, with 

 special propriety, the linguistic unit. So often then as we find 

 this combination of two ideas and their relation, w^e tally one 

 upon the thought-score. 



VIII. COHEEENT UNITS HAVE A COMMON FACTOR. 



This truism merely calls for illustration. Suppose I tell you 

 that "I just met Brown — Smith is ill." Measuring by the unit 

 just established, I find two thoughts, namely my meeting with 



^Tbe question whether thought results imprimis from analysis or from 

 synthesis need not be raised. In any language using words as signs of single 

 ideas (not as signs of whole thoughts) the speaker necessarily analyzes his 

 thought, however first conceived, into ideas. These ideas the hearer forms into 

 a thought by synthesis. 



21 overlook interjectional utterance, the more or less unmodified survival of 

 the purely reflex cry, originally a mere leakage of the expressional mechanism, 

 void of that purpose essential to the genuinely linguistic act. 



