Owen i —Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 369 
what would be nice, if only it were; for otherwise he becomes 
the merest sentimentalist. In short., his aim is not the reforma¬ 
tion of sentential meaning, but rather exact sentential interpre¬ 
tation. 
Equivalence of conclusions based on different analyses. 
The view of thought which regards it as consisting of subject, predi¬ 
cate and copula, should lead, I think, to ultimate results the same as 
those to be obtained from a recognition of linguistic thought as con¬ 
sisting of a pair of terms and their relation. For the copula itself, or 
the idea which the word regarded as copula stands for, is a relation— 
a relation, to my own mind, of little practical importance, but still a 
relation (a relation, at the least, of mutal belonging) between subject 
and predicate.* The adopted analysis, on the other hand, develops a 
relation of maximum importance and accordingly more tangible. This 
tangibility will lighten the labor of further investigation, without, as I 
hope, invalidating its results, even for him who may regard the particu¬ 
lar relation which I employ, as imaginary. The conclusions more easily 
reached by the study of a tangible relation, will be found available, I 
think, for the more elusive relation expressed by the copula. 
Banger of underestimating the vagueness of thought-elements. 
The effort to interpret is in danger of reading into words a meaning 
which they do not distinctly have in ordinary usage. Indeed, the more 
the interpreter studies the sentence, the more certain he is to find for 
it values more precise than those which even he himself has in mind, 
in his ordinary use of speech. This result might roughly be explained 
by the current assumption that language reveals but a part of thought, 
and that part vaguely. I believe, however, that what is defective is 
often rather thought to be revealed, than the means of revelation. 
Such thought is, in one or more of its factors, commonly undeveloped. 
What the speaker wishes to be learned from his words is not, in many 
cases, what he actually thinks, but what he might think, if he took the 
trouble to do so. 
To illustrate, when I say in ordinary conversation “John is my 
father,” “John is honest,” “John is walking,” “Walking is good exer¬ 
cise,” the meanings of “is” are so undeveloped, even to myself, that I 
do not fully notice the difference between them. In each case what I 
have in mind is little more than this, that the other terms of my propo¬ 
sition have something to do with each other. That is, I am conscious 
that they are related; but I only incipiently particularize their relation. 
*For the idea of “existence,” so often alleged as the meaning of the 
the copula, see p. 380, note. 
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