Owen—Hybrid Parts of Speech. 
153 - 
In this expression the idea of singing is plainly the mid-term, 
of the central thought expressed by “Catherine sang a song.” 
“Sang” in other words is centrally a verb. At the same time 
the idea of singing is that of which, in lateral thought, the 
plaintiveness is adjunct—that, in other words, with which the 
plaintiveness stands in the object-to-quality relation. In lateral 
thought accordingly singing operates as if it were substance^ 
posing moreover as subject, or first term. “Sang” in other 
words is laterally a noun 29 (see page 114, note 9). Combining 
statements, I hold that, in “Catherine sang a song plaintively,”' 
“sang” is centrally verb and laterally noun—that is, a nominal 
verb—by no means a verbal noun. 
The little obscurity of this case, which possibly has embar¬ 
rassed other cases, may be relieved as follows: 
The thinking of the singing, although single, has two aspects. 
In the former it fills a gap which may be indicated by the ques¬ 
tion “What have Catherine and the song to do with each' 
other ?”, or “What is their relation ?”. The use of “sang” ex¬ 
hibits this relation as generically that of actor to actee (object) 
—specifically as that of singer to what he sings, as distinguished 
for instance from that of composer to what he composes. 
This relation is formative—that is, it is viewed as in the 
process of formation, rather than as merely existent. 30 This 
formation implies a formative cause—or, say, an action—the 
two in linguistic thinking being hardly separated. Accord¬ 
ingly, instead of formative relation , I substitute relation formed 
29 “Plaintively” should therefore rank as strictly adjective—or, say, 
as of coordinate rank with an adjunct of either first or last term. But 
the perception of language-makers was not of the clearest, as shown 
by the use—and disuse—of adverbial endings. Grammar, assuming 
rationality in linguistic practices which registered such perception, 
ranked on equal footing subject and object of the verb; distinguished 
adjuncts of the first two as adjectives, and adjuncts of the last as 
adverbs; and then—it may be, weary of distinction-making—extended 
the adverb class to include the adjunct of any other adjunct (ad¬ 
jective or adverb) to the nth degree of remoteness from its term—this 
for no more excellent discoverable reason than that language-users 
happened to use with all of them similar endings, although an adjunct 
is strictly ad -verlial only when adjunctive to a verb. 
Compare “become” with “be”, and “acquire” (in the sense of estab¬ 
lish relation of owner to property) with “have” (in the sense of be in* 
that relation). 
