Owen — Revision of Pronou7is. 125 



■^'us." The addition of new matter to the primary idea expressed by 

 ■"us" is surely no more important than the addition in the case of "my." 

 Plainly, however, both "my" and "usward" go far beyond the ideal 

 reach of their primitives. The immediate adjective of "I" would be 

 expressed in German by a theoretical "ichisch," Thus, what you or I 

 would call a "Napoleonisches Gesicht" the emperor himself might have 

 called an "ichisches Gesicht." And obviously the same imaginary 

 word might also be adverbially used. Thus, "Das hat er recht Napo* 

 leonisch getlian" would take in imperial parlance the form, "Das hat 

 er recht ichisch gethan." 



The gist of ^^possessive'^ peculiarity may then be put as fol- 

 lows: So far as structure of thought is concerned, "My coat" 

 is the same as ^^The coat of me;" the latter is structurally on 

 a par with "The coat on me;'' and this, again, exactly tallies 

 in structure with "The coat on the chair." The "possessive," 

 then, is but a prepositional phrase, expressed by multiple sym- 

 bolization in the form of a single word. This word, moreover, 

 often assumes, but by no means always, the adjective inflection. 

 This inflection, accordingly accidental, may be the more safely 

 overlooked that it is neither ideal nor functional but purely 

 associational ; see p. 62. 



THE SENSE IN W^HICII THEY AEE PEESONAL. 



Words of the present class are sometimes defined as pronouns 

 which stand for persons. Overlooking the fact that some of 

 them almost exclusively stand for things, I note that "who," 

 in either interrogative or relative usage, is claimed by Gram- 

 mar itself to stand for persons, though not admitted to personal 

 rank; and many indefinites, for instance "some" (as in "Some 

 say, etc.,"), as also the reflexive "myself" and others, have 

 equal claim to personal rank. Plainly the definition includes 

 too much. Again, in figurative usage, all the personals extend 

 their scope beyond the range of persons. The definition there- 

 fore plainly includes too little. 



Personality indeed, in the given sense, is quite beside the 

 question. When of my horse, my dog or my pipe I use a 

 ^^thou," it is in spite of their not being in such sense personal, 

 and because I am talking to them. And when, in talking to 

 a man, I address him as "thou," it is solely because I am talk- 



