Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Prima Pars Artis Logicae

Up to this point we have treated the term as a simple part of an expression that includes within itself all the parts of a proposition, whatever those parts may be. Now we proceed specifically to the parts of which an expression must be constructed, and divide them not according to their various modes of signifying, as we have done up to now with the term, but according to their different modes of composing and constructing an expression. For the dialectician these are two, namely, name and verb, which Aristotle treats in On Interpretation I¹. As St. Thomas notes there, lecture 1², the dialectician considers only these two as parts of an expression, setting the others aside, because only these two, namely, name and verb, are required of necessity for an enunciation, since without them not even a simple enunciation can stand. The name therefore composes the enunciation as an extreme; the verb, as that which joins and serves as the connecting middle. Thus they have different modes of constructing a proposition.

Aristotle therefore defines a name as “a vocal sound significant by convention, without time, no part of which signifies separately, finite and in the nominative case.” Aristotle defines it thus in On Interpretation I, and St. Thomas explains it there, lecture 4³.

The first three clauses have been explained in the definition of the term, namely, “vocal sound significant” and “by convention.” The remaining four are proper to the name and distinguish it from those things that are not properly names.

The clause “without time” distinguishes the name from the verb, which signifies with time, as will be seen in the next chapter. Hence “without time” in the definition of the name does not exclude time as a thing signified, but rather signification with time as a mode of signifying, because the name signifies a thing as a standing extreme, whereas the verb signifies it as flowing, joining, and acting; every action occurs with time and motion.

The clause “no part of which signifies separately” is included to exclude an expression and a complex term: an expression, because an expression is not a name but is composed of a name; a complex term, because a complex term is not one name but several names. The account of being and of one being is the same.

“Finite” is included to exclude infinite names, such as “non-man.” Note that “non-man,” if taken as two expressions with the force of a negation, is something complex and is excluded by the preceding clause, “no part of which signifies,” and so on. But if it is taken as a single expression, it is then an infinite name and is excluded from the account of a name—not because it cannot be part of a proposition as predicate or subject, but because it lacks the mode of a name, which is to denote and signify something determinate. An infinite name, however, does not signify something determinate, but removes a determinate signification; and because it proceeds by removing signification rather than positing it, it is not a name. Observe here that the proper force of an infinite name is not simply to signify nothing: for the name “nothing” does not signify something, but removes a signification that belongs to some name. It is therefore rightly excluded from the account of a name, because it removes a name’s signification and neither posits nor has the office of positing, but rather of removing, the signification denoted.

“Straight” is included to exclude the oblique cases, by which a name is declined, such as hominis, homini, and so on. These are excluded from the category of names because they are not names in themselves, but only by reason of their principal form, or nominative, from which they are derived and from which they decline. Hence the nominative and the oblique case signify the same thing, but do not exercise signification in the same way: the oblique cases do not exercise it so as to signify the thing as a “what” and as an extreme in itself, but as belonging to another and in relation to another. It follows that they do not supply a subject to a substantive verb, but to an impersonal verb, as in “it repents me” (poenitet me). Thus they form an expression by reduction, or by understanding the nominative, as if one were to say, “Repentance possesses me.”