Universa Philosophia

That every speech consists of a name and a verb is to be shown, sect. 3, from Aristotle, book 1 of On Interpretation, chapter 2; from this the definition of a name is gathered: A significant utterance by institution without time, no part of which signifies separately, finite, and direct, which with a verb makes a true or false speech. A very long definition for so short a thing: although almost all dialecticians admit it with Peter of Spain, book 1 of the Summulae, chapter 3, and the Conimbricenses on that chapter of Aristotle, it nevertheless suffers some difficulties. The first, that adjective names are not names: because alone with the verb est they do not make a proposition true or false, as albus est: for if albus is taken adjectivally without a substantive at least understood, it makes no sense, which consequence Fonseca seems to have admitted, book 1, chapter 12. It is nevertheless against the whole phalanx of grammarians dividing the name into substantive and adjective, as is clear from our countryman Aelius Antonius, the most celebrated Doctor of grammar, book 3, chapter 5, on the questions of names, and from the recent art printed by order of the Catholic Philip III, King of the Spaniards, book 3; nor are adjectives in another species of the parts of speech, except in the species of names.

Then proconsul is a name, either part of which is significant in that composition: for pro retains its entire signification, which is in place or in the stead of another: likewise also consul: proconsul therefore signifies a magistrate exercising the vice of a consul: and although pro loses there the force of a preposition, because there it does not have the ablative case, nevertheless it does not lose its signification, for magistrates were sent to the provinces in place of consuls, just as Proreges are now created, whom the Kings of Spain call lugar tenientes, where the entire signification of the two words is retained. Father Rubius answers that those separate parts have their own significations, but not those which they have in the compound. On the contrary, in the compound they have their own significations as it were heterogeneous, from which the whole signification of the name coalesces, which is not distinguished from the signification of either part: for we understand that that magistrate is in place of a consul, which the name proconsul explains, for the first part pro signifies vice, and consul a consul, whether it is in that name or outside it, which is clearer in this name Respublica.

Names which are called infinite or infinitating do not seem justly to be banished from the class of names, for they have their cases and signification; that nothing in particular but infinite things are signified by them, what does it matter? for infinite things as much beings as non-beings can be signified by one word: non homo, for example, signifies that which is not a man, just like the words distinctum ab homine: but let us omit these questions about the name, for oblique cases too are names, and those which with one verb signify in the direct case, with another signify in the oblique, e.g. me poenitet peccati, is the same as I poenitentiam ago peccati mei: since therefore there is no diversity of significations there, but only of phrases, why are oblique cases excluded from the name? Likewise Regnis Regnidis is a name of the third declension, and feminine in gender, although by institution it signifies nothing.

A name, then, is an utterance declined through cases, as is clear from Nebrissensis on the Royal Art, and from the common usage of grammarians; that every name is declined through cases is clear from Aristotle in that chapter 2 of book 1 of On Interpretation, defining a name through the direct case, which is the nominative, the others being called oblique: likewise every utterance having cases is a name, and no utterance lacking every case is a name, therefore this is an apt definition of a name.

You will say first that participles and passive gerunds are utterances declined through cases, although they are not names. For Nebrissensis assigns eight parts of speech, in which he distinguishes names, pronouns, and participles from the name; but (as is clear from the same Nebrissensis, book 3, chapter 4, in the commentaries) there was once a great dissension about the number of parts of speech; he himself asserts eight, which the authors of the Royal Art say must be admitted, for no other reason than that it is so said; but in book 3, annotation 1, they report various opinions, and the view of Varro, who admitted only two parts, which Peter of Spain confirms from the dialecticians, chapter 4; afterwards he added the view of Diogenes Laertius constituting five, which they confirm from Plato, as our Brocensis learnedly observed, who flourished in this most celebrated Academy, nurse of the good arts; wherefore name, pronoun, and participle are one part of speech, because a pronoun is nothing but a name used for a proper name, but a participle is called by grammarians an adjective derived from a verb. And indeed there will, not incongruously, be three parts of speech, name, verb, adverb, the rest look to these; under name are comprehended pronoun, participle, and passive gerund (which is a participle of the future in dus): under the adverb are contained preposition, conjunction, interjection, and the rest. But grammarians use another division for the sake of clarity, for the benefit of boys.

You will say secondly that participles signify with time, which is against the nature of a name. First, that this is false the authors of the Royal Art rightly show, book 3, notes 8 and 9, for they confirm from the best Latin authors that participles serve every time, to which are joined all the tenses of sum, es, fui. Then add in the definition, an utterance declined through cases not signifying with time, by which last particle names differ from participles: although it is not necessary.

You object thirdly that there are some indeclinable names, as cacohetes; some grammarians quite incautiously admit names inflexible through cases; Antonius above, chapter 5, says that being declinable is the difference of a name from indeclinable words, but in chapter 4 he had said that the declinable parts of speech are four, name, pronoun, verb, and participle: and the indeclinable ones as many others, preposition, adverb, interjection, and conjunction, which doctrine is constant among grammarians; but now why are they so drowsy as to admit a name among the indeclinable parts? As if a philosopher, having laid down that man is a rational animal, should admit that some irrational thing is a man: therefore names are called indeclinable because all their oblique cases are like the direct, which is proved from neuter names of the fourth declension, which in the singular have complete cases, yet all end similarly, as veru, gelu, which if they lacked the plural would be called indeclinable, indeed by Blessed Augustine, to be quoted below, they are called indeclinable in the singular. Behold, what Augustine calls indeclinable because of the similarity of cases, the grammarians call declinable, and what these call indeclinable, Augustine declines through similar cases, as I now prove.

It is confirmed, because in speeches we use an indeclinable name no otherwise than as if it were declined, and we attach adjectives to it, and assign cases to it, v.g. nullum frit est in spica, spica nullum frit habet: behold frit (signifying I know not what less than a grain) is set in different cases, which doctrine is expressly handed down by Augustine, tome 1, book on grammar, near the beginning, where he says that this name, frugi, et nihil is declined through all the cases of the singular and plural with this sound of the nominative: but frugi is reckoned among indeclinables by the grammarians, which Augustine says is declined through all cases as in the nominative, which declension is called monoptote by the grammarian, as Antonius teaches, book 3, chapter 5, which the grammarians explain by an indeclinable word, as also Blessed Augustine above, although a little before he had ascribed to them all cases of the same termination. Indeed in the same place a little further down he declines neuters of the fourth declension through all the cases of the singular, which he had said a little before to be indeclinable in the singular. And so to be indeclinable is to have all cases similar, and although it is against the concept of a name to lack all oblique cases, it is not, however, against the concept to lack some: but in languages lacking oblique cases, all are found: because all end similarly, but are distinguished by prefixed articles, or adjectives, or some other mark, as is clear in the Spanish language. But if we do not find the direct cases of some names, or more oblique ones, it is not that they do not have them, but because we do not know in what way the ancients used them.

About the direct and oblique cases there is a question, whether they differ in species? And indeed the Conimbricensian College, 1 On Interpretation, ch. 4, q. 2, art. 3, § cavendum tamen est, rightly warns that not all oblique cases differ in species among themselves: because vescor carnibus, et vescor carnes is the same, for they are not signs of different concepts, but are only various cases from various grammatical rules. Whence I also gather that neither does the direct differ from the oblique in the nature of a sign, but only in grammatical termination, when from the direct and oblique the same concept is formed, for mihi cura est huius libri is the same as mihi curae est hic liber: often nevertheless they differ in species, because they are derived from concepts differing in species, as in these propositions: mihi est liber, ego sum libro.

Concerning adjectives and substantives, someone will ask whether they differ in species or not. The Conimbricenses above cite weighty authors for either side, which they defend on both sides; but I am more pleased that they differ in species, because concerning adjectives signifying some form really distinct from the substantive there can be no doubt: for sapiens joined to Petro differs in species, because through it I form a concept specifically distinct from the concept of Petro alone; nor does it seem less certain when the adjective signifies the same thing in reality as the substantive, yet conceived in a different way: because the mode of conceiving is an act of the intellect, therefore where there is a different mode of conceiving, there is a different conception; but for the diversity of conceptions the diversity of names is taken in the character of a sign, therefore. The minor is proved, both because predications from those terms are formal and not identical, as Deus est omnipotens; and because a diversity of names without a diversity of concepts is synonymy, as ensis, gladius. The reason a priori, because Deus, for example, is conceived as being from itself and as it were standing through itself; but omnipotentia is conceived by connoting creatures and as it were existing in God.

There is a doubt about this word and similar ones, album taken adjectivally and substantively. I answer, however, that it is not taken substantively, because whiteness is taken to be signified concretely always as affecting a subject, whence the subject is always signified in the direct case and whiteness is connoted in the oblique: but if at some time it is taken substantively, although the word sounds the concrete, the sense nevertheless and the mode of conceiving is abstract; as album ovi is equivalent to albedo existens in ovo, while a white egg is an egg having whiteness; then they differ in species, because they ground diverse conceptions.