Owen—Hybrid Parts of Speech. 
215 
fhe one as verbs and the other as verbals. Moreover central 
thought, as previously indicated, must be a judgment, or in 
other words requires assertion; and it has happened, though by 
no means of necessity, that assertion is effected only by that 
element of central thought-expression which is called a verb. 
Per contra, strictly lateral thought is not a judgment, or in 
other words is not asserted by any of its expressional elements. 
{See further page 234, note, and page 242.) The central 
verbs are accordingly assertive, while the lateral verbs are un¬ 
assertive ; and by these names it is. best, perhaps, to know them. 
The assertive verbal forms moreover lend themselves to ar¬ 
rangement into time-groups known as tenses, which may for 
convenience include what in certain languages is known as 
the “tenseless form of the verb.” 
The forms of each assertive tense are further grouped ac¬ 
cording to their number and person inflections, which show with 
what manner of subject they must be associated. 
The unassertive forms of the verb are properly classified in 
the second instance, according to non-verbal function, as ver¬ 
bal nouns, verbal adjectives and verbal adverbs, of which the 
last, so far as observed, exhibit only a single form. 
The many forms of verbal noun, and those of verbal adjec¬ 
tive, are further classified according to the more or less of 
inflection, verbal and non-verbal, which they respectively ex¬ 
hibit. 
In the following tabular form, presumably incomplete, the 
verbal nouns exhibit at once a diminuendo of substantive in¬ 
flection and a crescendo of verbal inflection; also the order of 
the verbal adjectives conforms to decreasing adjective and grow¬ 
ing verbal inflection. Por the sake of brevity, their occasional 
well-known variations for tense, case, etc., are unnoted. 
