208 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 
pears to require that the verb which admits to its conjugation 
forms intended to express the one, should also admit the forms 
intended to express the others. 
Grammar however is by no means consistent. Forms for 
beginning, known as inchoative, it gathers into the separate 
conjugation of what it ranks as an independent verb. Forms 
for ended—and forms for continuing—action it associates with 
those which exhibit the constant meaning of the verb without 
the idea of beginning, continuing or ending. 
So to misshape the mental eye as to reproduce the distorted 
vision which betrays the pseudo-science in further procedure, is 
perhaps impossible. Somewhat however as follows Grammar 
seems to have cerebrated. First of all the ending of an act and 
the ended act are confounded. (1) “I completed falling” and 
(2) “I completely fell” are seen as one. 67 Again, from com¬ 
pletely falling it is but an easy step to its immediate sequel 
“being down,” expressible by “am fallen,” which indicates a 
status resultant from a completed fall, itself resultant from 
the completion of the act of falling. 
In terminology Grammar thrives no better than in discrim¬ 
ination. A given verbal form, conceived as indicating action 
continuing in the past (for instance “faciebam”) is called im¬ 
perfect, presumably because the completing or perfecting of the 
act remains unindicated. For it can hardly be the space of 
time required for the act, that is conceived as uncompleted, as 
this on occasion may be distinctly shown to have lapsed in an- j 
other century—a thousand years ago; and the conception of the 
time required for the act as, in a former century, uncompleted, 
is a little too refined for linguistic usage. The space of time 
required for the act accordingly is completed, or perfectly past; 
but the act itself may be uncompleted or imperfect—not only 
at the moment in which it is sensed, but forever; that is, it 
-- 
67 For distinctly expressing (1) there seems to be no special form. 
“I fell” can hardly be construed as expressing any analytic element 
of falling—either its beginning, continuing or ending. (2) has been 
held to be expressed by “I have fallen,” though personally I confess a 
complete inability to find in “I have fallen” any distincter expression 
of completion or completeness than is findable in “I fell.” 
