134 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
I wish moreover, to facilitate comparative examination, that 
my active and my passive specimens be forms of one verb only. 
Not however finding thus far any verb to furnish them, I do 
some violence to Latin usage, postulating “Pluitur”, which I 
propose as tantamount to an also postulated, not however quite 
so violent, “(Es) wird geregnet”—the analogon again of “(Es) 
wurde gespielt.” 
My specimens at once suggest a facile interpretation. The 
action (raining) might with little difficulty take the subject- 
place in a figurative thought consisting of the action posed as 
an active entity, the relation of performer to what is performed, 
and the action posed as such. That is, the action might be 
figured as performing itself. “Pluit” might then be trans¬ 
lated “Raining performs itself;” and “Pluitur”, “Itself is per¬ 
formed by raining,” or—because “Itself” and “Raining” are 
essentially identical—-“Raining is performed by itself.” 
If this interpretation were accepted, recognizing both the 
members of an action-personnel, the present case would be, ex¬ 
cept in form, a repetition of Case I. 
In the present ease I see however not the slightest indication 
that the mental picture of a self-performing action was devel¬ 
oped; for, had it been developed, it might fairly be expected 
that it also would be formally expressed. The mind that with 
such ease could, mainly out of mental nothings, build “Es spielt 
sich” and the like, could doubtless, out of mental somethings, 
with much greater ease construct “Ein spielen thut sich,” or 
“Das Regnen macht sich”—even “Pluere facit se”; and it is 
true that in the actual “Es thut sich ein Spielen” many would 
presumably construe as bona fide subject “Spielen,” ranking 
“Es” as merely its indefinite prefigurement. But, as shown 
above, “Wie hiibsch spielfis sich den Vater!” and analogous ex¬ 
pressions common in both Spanish and Italian indicate the ac¬ 
cusative value of “Spielen,” and the meaning-nullity of “Es” 
and “sich.” Even in the active voice accordingly the figure 
of self-performance seems not in the present case to have been 
adopted. In the passive voice the much more difficult “'Ein 
Spielen wird (durch) von sich gethan,” “Ein Regnen wird von 
