ABSTRACT
ALTHOUGH grammatical and logical categories do not finecessarily coincide, it is convenient to classify syntactical forms according to their functions in stating or modifying a logical proposition, or in bringing two such propositions into relation. The appropriate divisions, then, are:
Subject and modifications thereof Predicate and modifications thereof Copula and modifications thereof Links between propositions
There are, however, grammatical propositions which do not fall within any of these categories. Such are statements in the form of an interjection or exclamation. Of these in Japanese the simplest type is represented by a group of words such as
yo no mijikaku akuru wabisltisa
i. e. 'how sad that the nights are short and daybreak, when we must separate, comes so quickly'
Here nasa and wabishisa are nouns used in an exclamatory way. These are rudimentary propositions formed without the aid of a verb, and it is worth noting that a typical sentence in Japanese, like tori ga naku, is historically of the same type, since it is composed of two nouns-' bird's singing' instead of 'the bird sings'.
