Owen i —Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 399 
erning other words—more or less something else in their government 
by other words.* 
Regarding the imperative, not as a mode, but as an individual verb, 
I observe that its conjugation is defective, especially in comparison 
with what it might have been. Starting with a form for “I desire you 
to come” (say “Come!”), it was obviously possible for language to de¬ 
velop form-varieties meaning subjunctively “(that) I desire you to 
come,” infinitively “me to desire you to come,” and so on through the 
total range of verbal nouns, adjectives and adverbs. Variation for 
time, say tense, ( may occur not only with desire, but also with that 
which is desired; and the two variations may agree or disagree. The 
like is true of variation for person and number. In short all conjuga- 
tional possibilities are open to the imperative, and each is often doubly 
available. Among the permutations and combinations mus produc¬ 
ible I shall not take the risk of losing my way. Enough that speech 
has been contented with an insignificant part of their disheartening 
number.** 
Its essential content. 
This is plainly subject to variation. Some indeed have 
divided imperative expressions into many species—precatory, 
hortatory, mandatory, etc. These however may he overlooked 
in an investigation which more especially aims to discover the 
method of idea combination, than to increase the precision of 
ideas combined. I center attention on the general admission 
that imperative sentences stand for something more than the 
expressions hitherto examined. 
To make that “something more” completely obvious, let an 
imperative expression be set in the light which may be shed by 
a contextual neighbor. Accordingly, “Eat that apple! For I 
am not hungry ” 
*Thus “I prefer your wearing black—you to wear black—that you 
wear black” exhibits the verbal substantive in turn as verbal noun, 
infinitive and subjunctive used as noun. In “I prefer persons wearing 
black—who wear black” the verbal adjective appears in turn as par¬ 
ticiple and as (in some languages) subjunctive used as adjective. 
“She sang ear-splittingly” exemplifies a verbal adverb, which at the 
same time takes an object and is operative as an adjunct to a verb. 
In Greek this usage may be found outside of compounds. 
**I note, as somewhat interesting,” that “May he go!” (not “May he 
go?”) lies without the strictly imperative limit, as it fails to implicate 
the person addressed. On the other hand “Let him go!” is strictly 
enough imperative, but imperative of “Let”—and not or “go.” 
