122 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts, and Letters. 



State Street'' by ^*liome." But, just as in ^^I aiu going home'^ 

 I use the word "home" with an individual value and by no 

 means generally (as in "The homes of the working classes") ; 

 and just as in "Grandfather is ill" I name to my friends a par- 

 ticular person even more distinctly than by "Mr. Bro^vn ;" so 

 also in using the "I," it appears that I name a single particular 

 individual; and other persons, in using the same word, do the 

 same. The fact that this individual varies in the usage of dif- 

 ferent speakers cuts no greater figure than similar variation 

 in other ego-centrics. "Mother" and "Father," as used in the 

 family circle, I have always felt to be proper nouns and have 

 always written them with a capital. I am merely consistent, 

 in expressing the opinion that "I" should also rank as merely a 

 lexically somewhat peculiar proper noun. 



The adjective use of personals has been to Grammar, as might 

 be expected, the source of some embarrassment. While "whose" 

 in many languages is recognized as merely a genitive of "who" 

 relative or interrogative; while "one's" is consistently grouped 

 in declension with the nominative "one;" "my," "thy," "his," 

 etc., are wrested from their cognates "I," "thou" and "he," and 

 marshalled in a separate division, commonly known as possessive 

 adjectives. 



The motive for their isolation may be sought in the fact that, 

 in many languages, they are adjectively inflected. But such 

 inflection is an accident, without reliable value. In "Er ist 

 ein zu liebender Mann" "zu liebender" is merely an adjectively 

 inflected oblique infinitive. In "Elle est toute bonne," "toute" 

 is merely an adverb falsely invested with adjective inflection. 

 In "eine nach-haiisische Fahrt," "nach-haiisische" would merely 

 be an adjectively inflected prepositional phrase. This phrase 

 and the oblique infinitive both, no doubt, deserve to rank as of 

 adjective function ; that is, their ideas enter the structure of a 

 thought precisely as do the adjectives themselves. But as 

 Grammar commonly means by an adjective something more than 

 this, it is necessary, to avoid confusion, to examine a little 

 further. 



Given "wolf," the noun, and "wolfish," the adjective, it is 

 plain that the latter has lost the objectivity of the former, shrink- 

 ing to the expression of quality alone. "Wolf," again, suggests 



