Owen—Hybrid Parts of Speech. 
213 
The potential mode, exhibited by “That may be true’ 7 (Note 
the student’s “Cela soit vrai” based on the spurious definition 
of “soit” so often given in grammars) is lost in “Cela peut 
etre vrai” as well as in “potest.” That is, the idea of possi¬ 
bility, whether expressed by an added verb (“peut”) or by a 
recognizedly different verb (“potest”), is in French and Latin 
not regarded as developing a mode of “to be.” If a mode of 
anything, “may be” (compare “may die,” etc.) is a mode of 
possibility and not a mode of being, and as such may include 
the idea of belief or reject it, thereby laying claim to appear 
as indicative, subjunctive, infinitive, etc., as the situation of 
the moment indicates^—accordingly not a mode, but in its al¬ 
lowable scope a conjugation complete in itself. 
The so-called conditional mode (Compare “He would come 
if he could”), by which I mean the mode employed in con¬ 
ditioned statements'—that is, in conclusion—I shall later ex¬ 
hibit as a possible tense of any mode, 69 and accordingly foreign 
to the topic of the moment. 
Interrogative conjugation is best appreciated in the light of 
the simple indicative and imperative forms. To illustrate, 
the series (1) “You rise.” (2) “Rise!” and (3) “Rise you?” 
(or “Do you rise?”) may be regarded as asserting (1) that 
you rise, (2) that I wish you to rise and (3) that I wish you to 
inform me as to your rising. The imperative is accordingly 
a pregnant indicative, and the interrogative a pregnant imper¬ 
ative. (See “Interrogative,” pages 401 and 410.) So far 
then as augmentation of meaning offers a valid objection to the 
inclusion of (2) in the conjugation of (1), so far, and even 
further, a greater augmentation of meaning offers more valid 
objection to the inclusion of (3) in the conjugation of (1). 
Resuming what has been said of the accepted conjugational 
system, I object to (1) a general irrationality, neither form nor 
meaning consistently controlling its membership, and (2) an 
irrational admission of 
69 Compare “I expected him to come if he could,” and “I looked for 
his coming if he could,” in both of which I intend the condition to 
bear on his action only—not on my expecting. 
