Question X
Why Said Plato, That Speech Was Composed of Nouns and Verbs (Sophist, 262A).
1. For he seems to make no other parts of speech but them. But Homer in a sportive humor has comprehended them all in one verse:
Auto
s 'iwn klisihnde to sun geras, ofr' `eu 'eidhs. (Il. I 185)For in it there is pronoun, participle, noun, preposition, article, conjunction,
adverb, and verb, the particle -de being put instead of the
preposition eis; for klisihnde, to
the tent, is said in the same sense as 'Aqhnaze, to Athens.
What then shall we say for Plato?
Is it that at first the ancients called that logos,
or speech, which once was called protasis and now is called axiom or preposition, -- which
as soon as a man speaks, he speaks either true or false? This consists of a noun and verb,
which logicians call the subject and predicate. For when we hear this said, "Socrates
philosophizeth" or "Socrates is changed," requiring nothing more, we say
the one is true, the other false. For very likely in the beginning men wanted speech and
articulate voice, to enable them to express clearly at once the passions and the patients,
the actions and the agents. Now, since actions and affections are sufficiently expressed
by verbs, and they that act and are affected by nouns, as he says, these seem to signify.
And one may say, the rest signify not. For instance, the groans and shrieks of
stage-players, and even their smiles and reticence, make their discourse more emphatic.
But they have no necessary power to signify any thing, as a noun and very have, but only
an ascititious power to vary speech; just as they vary letters who mark spirits and
quantities upon letters, these being the accidents and differences of letters. This the
ancients have made manifest, whom sixteen letters sufficed to speak and write any thing.
2. Besides, we must not neglect to observe, that Plato says that speech
is composed of these, not by these; nor must we blame Plato for leaving out
conjunctions, prepositions, and the like, any more than we should cavil at a man who
should say such a medicine is composed of wax and galbanum, besides fire and utensils
omitted, without which it cannot be made. For speech is not composed of these; yet by
their means, and not without them, speech must be composed. As, if a man pronounces beats
or is beaten, and put Socrates and Pythagoreans to the same, he offers us
something to conceive and understand. But if a man pronounce indeed or for or
about, and no more, none can conceive any notion of a body or matter; and unless
such words as these be uttered with verbs and nouns, they are but empty noise and
chattering. For neither alone nor joined one with another do they signify any thing. And
join and confound together conjunctions, articles, and prepositions, supposing you would
make something of them; yet you will be taken to babble, and not to speak sense. But when
there is a verb in construction with a noun, the result is speech and sense. Therefore
some do with good reason make only these two parts of speech; and perhaps Homer is willing
to declare himself of this mind, when he says so often,
Epos t' 'efat 'ek t' 'onomazen.
For by 'epos he usually means a verb, as in these verses.
W gunai, `h mula touto 'epos qumalges 'eeipes,and,
Caire, pater,
`w xeine, 'epos d' 'eiper ti lelektai
Deindn, mfar ti feroien 'anarpucasai mellai. (Odyss. XXIII. 183; VIII. 408).
For neither conjunction, article, nor preposition could be called deinon
(terrible) or qumalges (soul-grieving) but only a
verb expressing a base action or a foolish passion of the mind. Therefore, when we would
praise or dispraise poets or writers, we are wont to say, such a man uses Attic nouns and
good verbs, or else common nouns and verbs; but none could say that Thucydides or
Euripides used Attic or good or common articles.
3. What then? May some say, do the rest of the parts conduce nothing to
speech? I answer, They conduce, as salt does to victuals, or water to barley cakes. And
Euenus calls fire the best sauce. Though sometimes there is neither occasion for fire to
boil, nor salt to season our food, which we have always occasion for. Nor has speech
always occasion for articles. I think I may say of the Latin tongue, which is now the
universal language; for it has taken away all prepositions, saving a few, nor does it use
any articles, but leaves its nouns (as it were) without skirts and borders. Nor is it any
wonder, since Homer, who is in fineness of epic surpasses all men, has put articles only
to a few nouns, like handles to can, or crests to helmets. Therefore, these verses are
remarkable wherein the articles are expressed:
'Aianti de malista diafroni qumdn `orine
Tw
Telamwniadh. (Il. XIV. 459)
and
Poieon 'ofra to khtos `upekprofugwn 'aleaito(Il. XX. 147).
and some few besides. But in a thousand others, the omission of articles neither
hinders perspicuity nor elegance of phrase.
4. Now neither an animal nor an instrument nor arms nor any thing else
is more fine, efficacious, or grateful, for the loss of a part. Yet speech, by taking away
conjunctions, often becomes more persuasive, as here:
One
rear'd a dagger at a captive's breast;
One
held a living foe, that freshly bled
With
new-made wounds; another dragg'd a dead. (Il. XVIII. 536).
And this of Demosthenes:
"A bully in an assault may do much with his victim cannot even describe to another person, -- by his mien, his look, his voice, -- when he stings by insult, when he attacks as an avowed enemy, when he smites with his fist, when he gives a blow on the face. These rouse a man; these make a man beside himself unused to such foul abuse."
And again:
"Now so with Midias; but from the very day, he talks, he abuses, he shouts. Is there an election of magistrates? Midias the Anagyrrasian is nominated. He is the advocate of Plutarchus; he knows state secrets; the city cannot contain him." (Demosthenes Against Midias, 25, 29).
Therefore, the figure asyndeton, whereby conjunctions are omitted, is highly commended
by writers of rhetoric. But such as keep overstrict to the law, and (according to custom)
omit not a conjunction, rhetoricians blame for using a dull, flat, tedious style, without
any variety in it. And inasmuch as logicians mightily want conjunctions for the joining
together their axioms, as much as charioteers want yokes, and Ulysses wanted withs to tie
Cyclop's sheep; this shows they are not parts of speech, but a conjunctive instrument
thereof, as the word conjunction imports. Nor do conjunctions join all, but only such as
are not spoken simply; unless you will make a cord part of the burthen, glue a part of a
book, or distribution of money part of the government. For Demades says, that money which
is given to the people out of the exchequer for public shows is the glue of democracy. Now
what conjunction does so of several prepositions make one, by knitting and joining them
together, as marble joins iron that is melted with it in fire? Yet the marble neither is
nor is said to be part of the iron; although in this case the substances enter into the
mixture and are melted together, so as to form a common substance from many and to be
mutually affected. But there be some who think that conjunctions do not make any thing
one, but that this is kind of discourse is merely an enumeration, as when magistrates or
days are reckoned in order.
5. Moreover, as to the other parts of speech, a pronoun is manifestly a
sort of noun; not only because it has cases like the noun, but because some pronouns, when
they are applied to objects heretofore defined, by their mere utterance give the most
distinct and proper designation of them. Now do I know whether he says that Socrates or
he that says this one does more by name declare the person.
6. The thing we call a participle, being a mixture of a verb and noun,
is nothing of itself, as are not the common names of male and female qualities (i.e.,
adjectives), but in construction it is put with others, in regard of tenses belonging to
verbs, in regard of cases to nouns. Logicians call them 'anaclastoi (i.e,
reflected),-- as fronwn comes from fronimos;
and swfronwn from swfronos, --
having the force both of nouns and appellatives.
7. And prepositions are like to the crests of a helmet, or footstools
and pedestals, which (one may rather say) do belong to the words than are words
themselves. See whether they rather be not pieces and scraps of words, as they that are in
haste write but dashes and pricks for letters. For it is plain that 'embhnai
and 'ecbhnai are abbreviations of the whole words 'entos bhnai and ectos bhnai, progenesqai for proteron genesqai, and
kaqizein for katw 'izein. As undoubtedly for haste and brevity's sake, instead of liqos ballein and toicous
'oruttein men first said liqobolein and
toicwrucein.
8. Therefore ever one of these is of some
use in speech; but nothing is a part or element of speech (as has been said) except a noun
and a very, which make the first juncture admitting of truth or falsehood, which some call
a proposition or protasis, others an axiom, and which Plato calls speech.