Owen—Hybrid Parts of Speech. 
209 
may never liave been carried to completion. Accordingly it is 
the act itself and not the time it occupies, that presumably ac¬ 
counts for the name “imperfect.” Analogously the verbal form 
conceived as indicating action ended in the past (for instance 
“feci”) is said to be in the perfect tense. As before, the time 
of the act is perfectly past, and therefore cannot.be the ground 
for giving this form a different name. The act itself is how¬ 
ever in this; case, if you stop to analyze it, doubtless begun, 
continued and completed or perfect. Accordingly in this case 
also it is the completeness of the act itself, and not the com¬ 
pleteness of the time it occupies, that accounts for its name, it 
being known as “perfect.” 
But an action conceived as completed in the remoter past is 
said to be of the pluperfect tense, an expression which offers 
several interpretations. (1) That an act be more than com¬ 
plete, is hardly conceivable and not, I think, intended. (2) 
The like may be said of the completeness with which the time 
required for the act has elapsed. (3) Yet obviously of two 
actions or two times occupied by action, both completely past, 
the one may belong to a remoter past than the other; and this 
it is, presumably, that is intended and alone intended by the 
word pluperfect. It appears accordingly that completeness 
and remoteness from the present have been rather mixed in the 
cited naming of past tenses. 
My aim in seeking to establish the confusion of tense (or 
date of occurrence) with the several stages of occurrence, has 
been to discredit the authority of Grammar. Further means 
of doing so are findable in several confusions of tense with 
mode, in the sense in which Grammar conceives the latter. 68 
But, without the aid of these, the already cited errors may be 
held to free the student of Grammar’s classification from any 
allegiance to tradition. 
68 Thus, for instance, Grammar’s perception appears to be at times 
completely baffled by the rather treacherous succession of dissolving 
mental views suggested by the series “future —not yet realized— unex- 
isfflng — unknowable— unknown— unassertable—* unasserted— subjunc¬ 
tive” of which the italicized elements have been alone enough to lead 
a multitude into the pit. 
