Owen-Hybrid Parts of Speech. 
203 
figuratively replacing that of actor to action) and the of (which 
expresses the relation of action to actee). “Eating,” being 
stripped of all relation-naming, is a mere action-namer, sub¬ 
stantively posed in its relations to “men” and “dinner.” But 
in the expression 
“Men’s eating their dinner,”" 
while “eating” still may be regarded as a noun to “men’s,” it 
is verb to “dinner,” having assumed the burden of showing, 
between the act which it names and “dinner,” the relation of 
action to actee—or in other words governing “dinner” as its 
direct object. That is, “eating” in this expression operates as 
a verbal noun. 
Wishing now to utilize this verbal noun in a description, 
and wishing it to operate in that description as an adjective, 
I illustrate the structure of my thought by the diagram 
men’s 
l 
The stage presented an eating scene 
. I. 
their dinner 
in which the “eating,” serving in its fellowship with the cen¬ 
tral “scene” as an adjective, while also laterally a noun with 
“men’s” and sublaterally a verb with “their dinner,” may rank 
as a verbo-nominal adjective. 63 
A little further stretching of imagination might also develop 
a verbo-nominal (or from a different point of view, a nominee 
verbal) adverb, as in 
dog’s 
I 
That sounds fightingly 
l 
cats 
If “eating” be felt to be a verb with “their dinner” more centrally 
than it is a noun with “men’s”, its rank would rather be that of a 
nomino-verbal adjective. 
14—S. & A. 
