Owen — Interrogative * Thought—Means of Its Expression . 469 
bait again a speech: complete —and more. It is, on the one hand, 
the assertion of my desire that yon tell me something. That is, 
in meaning, it is not a word, but a sentence. On the other 
hand, in form, it is not a sentence, but a word. It is, with 
many like expressions, most conveniently known as a one-word 
sentence. 
From the main body of its fellows I differentiate it as follows: 
it operates not merely as a single sentence, but also as part of 
a second sentence. Given two* judgments with a common factor, 
it symbolizes all of one and a considerable part of the other—is, 
roughly estimated, a sesqui-sentence. 
From its nearest of kin, for instance “Who*?,” it is distin¬ 
guishable by the nature of the special void which it aims to fill. 
Likening the act of judgment to the objective act of weighing, I 
note that the question of the “Who?” type seeks for an object 
to put in the balance. The question of the “IS” type seeks for 
a reading on the dial. They are respectively question of cause 
and question of effect—question of datum and question of con¬ 
clusion. 
Those who think of words as always sentence-factors—as 
“parts,” that is, “of speech”—have opportunity to add a species 
to the genus known as verb*. For, granting that, the question 
“IS Brown honest ?” means “1 1 wish you 2 to tell me your 3 believ- 
ing-or-disbelieving Brown 4 to be honest”—and that all the mean¬ 
ing of the paraphrase (that of “Brown” and “honest” excepted) 
is expressed by the IS of the question—it is plain that, in many 
conjugational systems, the I Si might four times over claim the 
verbal rank; and, as it also does what may be specially known as 
the question-asking, the IS might claim, a, special rank as an 
interrogative verb. 
Those, again, who hesitate to form new species, may elect 
to rank the verb* of the interrogative sentence as a, mere variety, 
or say a mode. Grammarians rank one form of the unassertive 
verb as the infinitive mode:. The verb which merely asserts, 
they call the indicative mode. The verb which asserts desire, 
they call the imperative mode. The verb which asserts desire 
to be informed, they may consistly call, as some* indeed have 
called it, the interrogative mode. 
This brings me back to my initial propositions. Neglecting 
classification of expressional elements into modes and parts of 
