Owen—Hybrid Parts of Speech. 165 
phrase are the act of building and the house, the mid-term or relation 
between them (incorporated in what is expressed by “batir”) being that 
of action to its own actee. 
Sometimes first and last terms are both obscured. In “The doctor 
likes to eat,” the obvious doer of the eating is himself, and that which 
is eaten is, with equal certainty, eatables. That is, both the actor and 
the actee are within easy mental reach. Whether they be, in this and 
the preceding cases, actually presented by multiple symbolization, or 
inferred from idea-environment—or even neglected, to the extent of 
remaining more or less subconscious—may be overlooked, because it is 
unimportant, and because it is hardly to be expected that different 
minds should operate alike. That however in some way a relation be¬ 
tween two terms should be distinguishable in the infinitive phrase ap¬ 
pears to me a sine qua non, the indication of such relation being the 
essential characteristic of every word to be ranked as verbal. 
Sometimes indeed no terms at all appear to be findable, thought ap¬ 
pearing quite unrecognized in detail. To illustrate from Italian, 
“Piove” suggests a phenomenon which may be regarded as mentally 
pictured without details, partly because they are not mentioned and 
partly because two people can hardly be found to agree upon the nature 
of the details. (Compare, Raining is occurrent. The present phenom¬ 
enon is rain. The usual energy is in cause-to-effect relation with 
raining, etc.) 
If now the question rise: what part of speech is “Piove”?, tlie 
answer plainly will be that it is not a part of speech at all, but the 
whole of a speech—a speech complete—a speech which indeed does not 
say much, but does say all that is required of it. “Piove” in short, 
although a single word, has acquired the power of expressing what is 
commonly expressed by three, that is, a judgment—or, to speak with 
possibly greater precision—that which would become a judgment, if 
sensed in detail. In view of this augmented power, “Piove” may be 
called a pregnant verb, and even more properly a sentential verb or a 
one-word sentence. 
In “Dice che piove” analogy invites a ranking of the final word as 
a one-word clause, or clausal verb—that is, a word with all the powers 
of a clause. Although as such it is in all strictness part of a speech, 
it is too large a part to rank among what Grammar means by the “parts 
of speech”, and accordingly may be neglected in the examination of 
their hyrids. 
How they operate as nouns. 
I. The Usual Interpretation. 
To give to this the advantage of the utmost plausibility, sup¬ 
pose by way of illustration that you say (1) “Astronomers de¬ 
clare the sun to exceed the moon”, and that I answer you by 
saying (2) “I declare that myself.” 
