44 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,, Arts, and Letters. 



completely natural. Incolierent tliouglits should be expressed 

 by unconnected sentences. Sometimes, liowever, the expression 

 of incoherent thought is 



(h) Continuous. 



Thus, "I played, he sang, she danced." This mode of expres- 

 sion, common enough in actual conversational style, is in this 

 case plainly unnatural. My thoughts not being coherent or 

 connected, I should not make my sentences even formally contin- 

 uous. As neither this nor the preceding case will be found to 

 make use of relatives, both may be neglected. 



IV. EXPRESSION OF COHERENT THOUGHT. 



(a) Continuous. 



This method appears in "I have a book will please you." 

 Such may be regarded as the normal expression of coherent 

 thought ; in such the relatives figure ; such will form the special 

 object of examination. It is meantime useful to recognize the 

 occurrence of the other method of expression, namely the 



(h) Interrupted. 



To divide the expression of coherent thought m.ay seem as use- 

 less as to make two bites of a single cherry. To say "I have a 

 book'' and again "A book v/ill please you", is plainly quite un- 

 natural. That sometimes, however, such a method must be fol- 

 lowed, appears as follows : 



V. LIMITATIONS OF CONTINUOUS EXPRESSION. 



To express continuously an unlimited amount, even of co- 

 herent thought, is quite impracticable. Aid to such expression 

 is amply furnished indeed by relatives, as also by tantamount 

 expressions (see p. 104, later), each of which in turn may form 

 the point of attachment for additional relative or similar ele- 

 ments. The linguistic possibilities thus developed are amus- 

 ingly shown by the nursery phrase-chains introduced by ^'This 

 is the house that Jack built." E'or are such abuses merely im- • 

 aginary. I quote from a college daily the following sentence, 



