Owen — Bevision of Pronouns. 3 



words are further sometimes differentiated by association, that 

 is, by the company which they keep.^ To classify by criteria 

 so shifting is hardly more rational than to divide the animal 

 kingdom into camivora, aquatics, vertebrates, and plantigrades; 

 say flesh-eaters, water-dwellers, back-boned and flat-steppers. 

 The candidates for pronominal rank are, however, obliged to run 

 the gauntlet of this classification, those only being accepted as 

 pronouns which reach the substantive line. 



In further grammatical treatment these substantive sur\dvors 

 are subjected to further ^-iolence, being forced into sub-classes 

 painfully distingTiished as personal, demonstrative, reflexive, in- 

 definite, relative and interroa'ative. The distinctions indicated 

 by these grou}>names are, however, plainly inadequate. For in- 

 stance, the indefinite "some," as in "Some say," is also distinctly 

 personal ; while on the other hand the personal "they," without 

 an antecedent, as in "Thev sav that France will fiii'ht," is also 

 distinctly indefinite. "Who," again, is regularly personal, 

 whether relative or interrogative. 



Such procedure is the more surprising in view of the wisdom 

 shown in choosing a point of departure, the characteristic, that 

 is, put forward as distinctively pronominal. A hint of this 

 characteristic is oifered in the pronoun's name and definition. 

 By the word "^^ronomen" it is immediately suggested that 

 something is conceived as for something. ISTow, if what bo 

 meant is a something "pro nomine," or "for a word," that some- 

 thing is obviously itself a word; for no other kind of substitute 

 is under consideration. So also if what be meant is a "nomen 

 pro," or "a word for something," this something must either be 

 a word or an idea, since onlv ideas and words are under consid- 

 eration. But an idea is not intended; for to stand "pro" or 

 "for" an idea is the usual ofiice of words, and no peculiarity of 

 the prou'oun. Yvliichever, then, be the syntax hidden in "pro- 

 nomen," the meaning is "a ^vord for another word."^ 



^Thus iu (1) "The flag is red" and (2) "Scarlet resembles red" the ideas 

 named by "red" (1) and "red" (2) are the same, being distinguishable only by 

 the different relations in which they stand to "flag" and "scarlet," respectively. 

 "Is" means, in this case, the relation of an object to its own quality, thereby 

 obtaining for "red" (1) the rank of an adjective. "Resembles" names another 

 relation, thereby losing for "red" (2) the adjective rank. 



-That "nomen" is actually used by Grammar in the more restricted meaning 

 of "noun" is ground of objection on p. 28. 



