Owen—Hybrid Parts of Speech. 
189 
coin” cooperate with “Booth’” in adjective function, or operate 
alone as object of “murder”. 53 
(2) The noun in verbal function. 
To illustrate, “Brown is a woman-hater” may perhaps be well 
enough construed by merely regarding “hater” as centrally a 
noun, in fellowship with “Brown is”—while at the same time 
operative as a verb with its direct object “woman.” 54 
In “Woman-hatred is uncommon” the actor has disappeared, 
relation being that of action to what it affects. 
In “The Lincoln murder,” so far as “Lincoln” may be 
sensed as object of “murder”, the latter word again exhibits 
the act and its relation (of action to its own object) with 
“Lincoln.” 
53 in short, I am quite unable to determine whether, in my illustra¬ 
tion, “murder” should be ranked as of this or the following class. 
These linguistic short-cuts are so short, and the syntax indications are 
so meager, that it is unsafe to claim, for a particular structure of 
thought-expressed, that it is intended by all or even a majority of 
speakers. By these short-cuts, only what is adequately known can be 
indicated with success. Thus, however much you know of Lincoln and 
of Booth, unless you know the act which my illustration names, you 
cannot be sure of rightly understanding what it means; for it might 
be construed as naming a deed of which the two men named were the 
perpetrators, or of which the two were the victims. Some ideas them¬ 
selves these short-cuts indicate but vaguely; and they hardly attempt 
the exhibition of thought-structure. They seem to content themselves 
with any structure that the facts allow. 
54 Looking a little more closely, I somewhat fully analyze intended 
thought, as indicated in the following diagram: 
12 3 
Brown — is — a person 
4 I 
relation of actor to action 
5 6 7 
hating — relation of action to actee — woman 
But the very fulness of the above analysis makes it implausible. It 
is more likely that mental action is briefer, and less accurate. The 
“person” in the indicated relation with the “hating” seems to pose 
before the mind as an act-producing actor (an actor producing the act 
of hating); and, as the act of “hating” further occasions the indicated 
relation between “hating” and “woman”, the “person” may pose as a 
relation-producing actor-—this however only previous to the arrival* 
on the mental stage, of what is expressed by “woman”. On this arrival, 
somewhat as indicated on pp. 153-154, the relation-producing actor is 
sensed, without a mental repetition, as the actor-produced relation. 
In the former aspect the idea is central last term in the thought ex¬ 
pressed by “Brown is a hater”; and “hater” is entitled to rank as a 
noun. In the latter aspect the idea is lateral mid-term between the 
relation-producing actor of the former aspect and the last term ex¬ 
pressed by “woman”; and “hater” is entitled to rank as a verb. 
