Owen — Revision of Pronouns. 21 



ing." Details and apparent exceptions I omit, as also any effort to 

 settle how far, as claimed, those actions alone be reflexively expressed 

 which recoil upon the actor. My interest ends with the proposition, 

 that reflexives are coinstatives (possibly even sometimes reinstatives), 

 which differ from others merely in the narrower range of their usage. 



Another formally coinstative usage, commonly served by the same 

 words as the last, is the emphatic. To illustrate: ''Brown paid for 

 the house himself." In this sentence it is true that I invite your at- 

 tention to an idea a second time; but I do not do this because I 

 wish this idea to obtain two thought-memberships; I wish it rather, 

 in a single membership, to be in some way more effective. I may 

 desire to make sure that you think of Brown, and not some other 

 person; of Brown in his own personality, and not in that of some 

 agent; of Brown in all his character, and not in any fractional exhi- 

 bition. In short, I am merely extending the effort distinctly to sym- 

 "bolize my idea. So far as you think my idea over again, you do so 

 merely to make sure of its being right. Such re-thinking does not 

 concern thought structure; as it also is attended by no new mode of 

 symbolization, it may be neglected in the present examination. 



Principal, proxy, and their mental interim cannot be regarded as ade- 

 quately examined without some notice of a peculiar usage, illustrated 

 by the following words of the New England Primer: 



"Zacliactis he 

 Did climb a tree 

 His Lord to see." 



The primitive aspect of such phraseology invites consideration of the 

 difficulty encountered by primitive minds in the reception of a mental 

 message. To exhibit this, suppose my barber to be linguistically back- 

 ward, not indeed in talk, but in understanding the talk of others. As 

 he begins to shave me, I remark "You have a new razor". I merely re- 

 call repeated experience, in supposing him to ansv/er "Who, me?" Now 

 it is perfectly plain to my questioner vrhom I mean; and his question is 

 hardly put for the sake of obtaining further assurance. He asks it, I 

 think, for the sake of gaining time; and he wants time, because I have 

 rushed ideas upon him vvith a rapidity for his mind excessive. To be- 

 come intelligible, I must reduce the speed of exposition. 



In doing this I will omit the commoner expedients such as slower 

 utterance, the use of bulky synonyms or paraphrases, the intercalation 

 of what is unnecessary or may safely be inferred, the makeshifts, in 

 short, of the embarrassed extempore speaker. I will merely meet in 

 turn, by legitimate and strictly linguistic means, what may be ranked as 

 legitimate needs of a mentally torpid hearer. I begin, then, my attempt 

 upon the barber with "Ahem!" or "Say!", the latter being in this case 

 not a superfluous hint to say anything, but the announcement that I 

 am about to say something myself. My utterance corresponds to the 



