THE CATEGORIES OR &quot; PRAE DICA MENTA &quot;. 143 



The categories may nevertheless be related to the grammatical parts of 

 speech, and the comparison may yield results both interesting and instructive. 



The individual subject about which (ultimately) all predications are made, 

 is expressed by the grammatical substantive or noun (or pronoun} either the 

 proper noun, or the common noun individualized by the article (definite or 

 indefinite) or the pronominal adjective (definite or indefinite). In so far as 

 these serve to indicate the substantia prima, or individual, they lie outside the 

 categories, which embrace only predicates. 



But a predicate may be (a) a common noun asserting the individual sub 

 ject to be (i) some kind of essence or substance i.e. something which subsists 

 in itself and not merely by inhering in some other underlying thing of which 

 it is a mere attribute or accident, as &quot; Socrates is a man &quot; ; or something 

 which, if it does not really subsist in itself, is considered apart from its sub 

 ject, or in the abstract, as &quot; The virtue under discussion is justice &quot; ; or (b] 

 an adjective of (ii) quantity, (iii) quality, or (iv) relation ; or (c] a verb (v) 

 active, (vi) passive, (vii) intransitive, (viii) reflexive or neuter ; or (d} an 

 adverb of (ix) place, or (x) time. 



Thus we see the ten categories embodied in just a few of the parts of 

 speech. The chief of these, from the point of view of logic, are undoubtedly 

 the substantive, the adjective and the verb : expressing the substance, its 

 properties, and its activities. The verb, used as predicate, is, of course, to be 

 analysed into the logical copula (is, are} and the participle, which then ranks 

 as an adjective. Moreover, the verb, as expressing action in the widest sense 

 of actuality, embraces existence itself. Exist is a verb : and existence is 

 called, in philosophy, the &quot;first&quot; act (actus primus &quot;} of a being, in com 

 parison with all further happenings or phases &quot; second &quot; acts (actus 

 &quot; secundi &quot;) of its actuality. 



Furthermore, we have said (22) that adverbs, being modes or qualifica 

 tions of verbs, are syncategorematic, and therefore cannot of themselves stand 

 as predicates ; but, by qualifying the latter, they indirectly qualify the subjects 

 of those predicates. Moreover, if the actions or events or attributes, which 

 they qualify, be themselves made logical subjects, the adverbs can be pre 

 dicated of these in the manner of adjectives; and this is particularly true of 

 the spatial and temporal determinations of things or events, expressed by the 

 adverbs of place and time, and always implying actual happening or exist 

 ence : &quot; Where was Socrates ? &quot; &quot; He was (existing) in Athens &quot; ; &quot; When 

 (was he living, existing) ? &quot; &quot; (He was living, existing) in the fifth century B.C.&quot; 



Prepositions (or inflexions) help to express the category of relation ; 

 conjunctions serve to combine simple into complex predicates ; interjections, 

 in so far as they have logical significance, are to be expanded into complete 

 statements. 



Most of the examples given above, to illustrate the various 

 categories, are taken from Grote s Aristotle. 1 Having in view 

 an analysis of the knowledge that men do or may possess about 

 the ordinary, familiar objects of sense experience particularly 

 about man himself, about the human individual, Aristotle gives 



1 pp. 77-8, apud WELTON, Logic, i., pp. 92-3. 



