ABSTRACT
SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES 53 thus for the ending E. -8 on the one hand" plural of substantive," on the other hand" third person singular present of verb," etc. Each of these indications comprised two or more elements, one of which concerned the" part of speech" or word-class, one denoted singular or plural number, one the third person, and finally one the present tense. In English these indications contained comparatively few elements, but if we take Latin, we shall find that matters are often more complicated: the ending of bonarum, for instance, denotes plural, feminine gender, and genitive case, that of tegerentur plural, third person, imperfect tense, subjunctive mood, passive voice, and so with other forms. Now it is clear that though it is impossible, or not always possible, to isolate these elements from a formal point of view (in animalium, where is the sign of the plural, and where of the genitive 1 in feci, where the indication of the person, of the perfect, of the indicative mood, of the active voice, etc. 1), on the other hand from the syntactic point of view it is not only possible, but also natural to isolate them, and to bring together all substantives, all verbs, all singulars, all genitives, all subjunctives, all first persons, etc. We thus get a seri es of isola ted syntactic ideas, and we must even go one step further, for some of these isolated syntactic ideas naturally go together, forming higher groups or more comprehensive syntactic classes.
