Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 441 
In short, the prepositional idea is absent or indefinite. Having no in¬ 
terrogative of prepositional aspect, with which to ask your help, I re¬ 
construct my thought in such a way as to bring the space relation which 
a preposition commonly renders, into such a region of my thought, that 
I can express it by a substantive. Accordingly, “The position (space 
relation to my reader) of my grammar is what?” or “What is the 
position of my grammar?” Again, not knowing the action in which 
Booth was actor and Lincoln actee, and not possessing an interrogative 
symbol for it—say an interrogative verb, as in “Booth whatted Lin¬ 
coln?”—'I generalize the action under the symbol “do,” and formally 
particularize it as “a doing something;” and this something I make 
the nucleus of a question, using the expression, “What did Booth do 
to Lincoln?” meaning, “Tell me something Booth did to Lincoln.” 
Precedents for bulky meaning. 
That a single word should have the total meaning commonly ex¬ 
pressed by many, need occasion no surprise. In the beginnings of 
speech the single word is believed to have performed the duty nowa¬ 
days assigned to the sentence. Indeed, survivals such as “Pluit” are 
familiar. Looking for illustration nearer home, suppose you ask 
“Did Booth kill Lincoln?”, and I answer “Yes.” My single word is 
conceded to express as much as “Booth killed Lincoln.” By reinstate¬ 
ment it assembles what ideas I need, and adds to them what is further 
required, to form a judgment. The monosyllable “Come!” is generally 
held to assert whatever is asserted by “I desire you to come.” Meaning: 
is not less multiple or complex in the sentence “Please!” (Conf. pp. 
434, etc.) 
The sentences, however, thus far cited, do not appear as parts of 
larger sentences. For such as do, I look to other languages. “Un je 
ne sais quoi me trouble” means “An I-do-not-know-what-it-is agitates 
me.” Examining the meaning of this group of words, employed in 
French to express the subject of intended thought, I find they form a 
sentence, while serving at the same time in a larger sentence precisely 
as a single word. Indeed, they form an available definition of “quelque 
chose,” “(et)was” or “something.” 
Its rank. 
In examining the “relative pronoun” I was forced to conclude- 
that it is not, in any proper sense, a pronoun—that, in the ordi¬ 
nary sense, it is not a word, because it does not stand for any ele¬ 
ment of thought.—that it! is merely a sign that an idea, already 
named by its antecedent and put thereby in one environment, is 
to remain in mind while a second environment gathers about it— 
commonly also a sign that, in this second environment, the said 
