EXERCISES ON CHAPTER II

1. Make five examples of terms of different degrees of complexity.

2. Make a list of twelve categorematic words, three to illustrate each of the four parts of speech that are categorematic.

3. Make a list of nine syncategorematic words, three to illustrate each of the three parts of speech that are syncategorematic.

4. Make five sentences of varying complexity and pick out the terms and copula, listing the terms as first (subject-) and second (predicate-) terms.

5. Analyze the copula from the second term in each of the following sentences; then rewrite the sentences so that the copula and second term are distinct:

1. The moonlight plays fitfully upon yonder rippling

stream.

2. Our own misdeeds speak strongest in our condemnation.

3. The wind blows from the south-east.

4. John plays with his school-mates.

5. John played with his school-mates.

6. Make a list of three examples of each class of terms noted in the text.

7. Mention five abstract terms that refer to ideas that have tended toward concreteness through hypostasis of abstractions.

8. Arrange five pairs of (true) contradictories under the headings "Positive" and "Negative"; then put down the corresponding terms that were once true contradictories, but are no longer such owing to language changes; as, for example:

desirability racehorse flock untrue

9. Classify the following terms as in the sample table given below by making a cross in the appropriate column, noting especially that the same term may belong in more than one column:

10. Name ten pairs of relative terms, and indicate which are the correlatives.

11. Name a term closely connected by association with each of the ten terms named in answer to Exercise 10.

CHAPTER III.-AMBIGUITY

13. HOW TERMS COME TO HAVE DIFFERENT MEANINGS. Our ideas are far more numerous than the vocabulary that we command for their expression. Hence we are put to the necessity of using the same terms to symbolize different ideas. This tendency is increased by our habit of using figurative language in poetical and dignified modes of expression. Then again language is full of "faded metaphors"-by which are meant figurative expressions that have, in the course of time, become so trite as to have lost their character as figures of speech. Nearly all our terms for ideas that are not the direct product of sense-perception are of this character. For example, such terms as impression, conception, etc., reveal in their etymology their character as faded metaphors.

This use of terms to express more than one idea is a great enrichment of our power of expression; for without it many of the ideas we have could not be communicated to others. But unfortunately it greatly increases the liability to confusion of meaning. This is, of course, a logical rather than a grammatical or rhetorical difficulty; and since logic must accept the form of language as given by usage, the only thing it can do is to suggest cautions against ambiguity, and to impose certain prac

tical rules for securing singleness of meaning as long as a term is employed in one and the same discourse.

14. DEFINITIONS.-A univocal term is one which suggests to the mind only one possible meaning. There are relatively few such words in the language. Scientific and technical terms furnish the best examples. Indeed, science marks its advance largely by the ability of its followers to determine and establish a nomenclature, i. e., a technical vocabulary that is univocal. Such words as quinine, arc-light, eau-de-cologne, radium, X-rays, are univocal.

An ambiguous or equivocal term is one which suggests to the mind more than one meaning. Most terms are more or less ambiguous, especially terms referring to objects of thought and imagination rather than of sense-perception. Examples of ambiguous or equivocal terms are church, spirit, minister, force, faculty.

15. THE FALLACY OF EQUIVOCATION.-The fallacy of equivocation is an erroneous meaning which grows out of the use of an ambiguous term. It may arise either from an unconscious confusion in the user's own mind, or from a malevolent purpose of confusing others. In the latter case it is frequently called a sophism or quibble, and is a notorious weapon for defending a weak case against an opponent who is too ignorant or too slowwitted to detect the trickery. More will be said about this fallacy in a later chapter on the fallacies. It is interesting to notice that punning and the usual wit and humor that pass current in the newspaper column depend upon that form of ambiguity called "a play upon words."

16. TYPES OF AMBIGUITY.-A rough distinction may be made between ambiguities of spoken discourse, written discourse, and those incident to both. The words air and heir, heart and hart, hair and hare, would be liable to misapprehension only when heard. On the other hand, tear (from the eye) and tear (a rent in clothing), lead (a metal) and lead (guidance), would prove confusing only when read. But rent (of a house) and rent (a tear in clothing), relation (colloquialism for relative), relation (connection between things), and relation (the narrative of a story), might easily mislead the intelligence whether the appeal was to the ear or the eye.

We may almost disregard the first two types as occasions of serious misapprehension of meaning; for they are easily detected and may be corrected by reference to the context or situation. But the last class of words is the cause of serious errors, especially if there is a basis of real likeness between the several things whose meaning the term may suggest.

In addition to the mistakes to which the cultured are liable, there are the legions of misspellings and mispronunciations of the ignorant to throw their scanty store of correct ideas into confusion. But for the fallacies of true ignorance education, and not logic, must supply the medicine.

It should be noted that ambiguity almost never occurs in discourse between words representing different parts of speech. For example, one would not confuse the two words "bear" in such a sentence as this: The fearless hunter levels his gun as the bear bears down upon him. Under such circumstances the widely differing functions of the words secure to them the necessary singleness of meaning.

It is sufficiently shown, then, that trouble arises nearly altogether when the sound conspires with the spelling to mislead, when the grammatical functions of the words are identical, and when the things to which they refer, be they thought products or material objects, have an underlying ground of real or supposed likeness.

17. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF AMBIGUITY.-It is confusion of ideas that lies at the bottom of prac