Page 498 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Key Figures
(d) the subject of a finite verb is in the nominative;
(e) the subject of an infinitive (unless identical with the subject of its governing verb) is in the accus-
ative;
(f) the gender of a noun (as opposed to inter-
envisages a formula S= X+(is/are) + Predicate in which the 'is/are' may sometimes be swallowed up in the Predicate (see De Interpretation 21b badizei 'walks' equals badizdn esti 'is walking') and lists 10 different types of Predicate, which he may or may not havemeanttobeanexhaustivelist,based, apparently, on a mixture of semantic and formal (morphological or syntactic) criteria, but which certainly comes close to being exhaustive. The traditional names of these predicate-types can be matched up with grammatical classes as follows:
(a) Substance (including particulars, species, and genera) = noun phrases, including proper nouns and definite NPs as particulars, simple NPs as species and genera;
(b) Quantity (including size)=adjectival expres- sions of size and number (but excluding words like 'big' and 'little,' 'many' and 'few,' which are really relative terms (pros ti)), hence num- bers and numerical phrases;
(c) Quality = nonquantitative, nonrelative (al- though Aristotle suggests that some adjectives are both qualitative and relative), adjectives, and adjective phrases;
(d) Relation (pros tf) =adjectives which may be compared (or modified by 'more,' 'very,' 'so,' etc.) and nouns which require or imply a depen- dentgenitive(\\kefather, inalienablypossessed, or like knowledge, nominalizations of transitive verbs);
(e) Place=adverbs and prepositional phrases of place;
(f) Time=adverbsandphrasesoftime;
(g) Position (keisthai) seems to include stative verbs of sitting, standing, lying down, and the like, though it probably is not limited to human
subjects;
(h) State (echeiri) appears to mean perfect passive
verbs other than any included in Position;
(i) Action (poiein) seems to include both transitive and intransitive verbs (in the present or aorist
especially);
(j) Affection (paschein) includes verbs in the pas-
sive voice plus other verbs of sensation or emotion.
Though a few of the same terms will be met later in Dionysius Thrax's lists of verb voices, noun types, and adverb types, most of these notions do not appear in later grammarians.
The De Interpretatione (peri hermSneias) starts out with some more precise definitions of terms seen before, like 'noun' and 'verb' and 'sentence,' plus some new ones like 'proposition.' The opening paragraph, however, contains an interesting refinement of the innateness assumption used by Psammetichus: 'What occurs in speech are symbols of feelings in the mind, and what is written are symbols of what is spoken.
(g)
(h)
(i) (j) (k)
rogative and sometimes relative and demon- strative pronouns) need not be the same as the sex or animacy of its referent;
a relative pronoun must agree in gender and number with its antecedent;
a predicate noun or adjective with a verb like einai 'to be' agrees in case with its subject; words like isos 'equal to' govern the dative; words like diplasios 'double' govern a genitive; transitive verbs (like tuptd 'hit' and herd 'see') govern the accusative.
of these passages, except the one in Rhetoric,
All
also include a technical term for 'nominative singular' (besides houtos) or, sometimes, 'nominative singular masculine,' or, perhaps, in one passage, 'the ter- mination of the nominative singular,' klSsis. This is opposed, of course, to the ptdseis, which are all the other forms (case, number, and gender) of a noun, pronoun, or adjective (which are all onoma to Aris- totle).
The reason why syntax is discussed in all these pass- ages is the same, to show how some soloikismoi may either be used to deceive your interlocutor or audi- ence, or else be analyzed to avoid being deceived or to refute an opponent. (Since the sixth century, when an educated man need only be able to discuss and analyze poems at a dinner party or drinking party, a new recreation had arisen in Athens, to which Plato's dialogs give literary life, the disputation on philo- sophical or technical points.)
To sum up, the grammar sketched in the Poetics and used in Aristotle's discussions of solecism may be said to summarize the linguistic achievements of the fifth century, and thus, in a sense, represent the earliest grammatical treatment of Greek that can be recon- structed.
The Categories, by contrast, contain a great deal that is new. In spite of the vague similarity of Plato's onoma and rhSma to 'subject' and 'predicate,' it is only in Aristotle that the notion of 'predicate' is really developed. And even he does not provide a perfect expression for 'subject': hupokeimenon is indeed the source of our term calqued into Latin—hupo=sub, keimenon=jectum—but none of the later gram- marians made such use of it. For Apollonius Dyscolus it is almost as often used for the object as for the subject, and he often flounders around for lack of such a term. But after the rediscovery of Aristotle, the term does come into grammatical use. TheCategories (the term means 'predicates' or 'predicate-types') does, however, provide the only elaborated classification of predicates outside of the Stoics. Essentially Aristotle
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