Vitae philosophorum

Seven of the letters are vowels, a, e, ē i, o, u, ō, and six are mutes, b, g, d, k, p, t. There is a difference between voice and speech; because, while voice may include mere noise, speech is always articulate. Speech again differs from a sentence or statement, because the latter always signifies something, whereas a spoken word, as for example βλίτυρι, may be unintelligible— which a sentence never is. And to frame a sentence is more than mere utterance, for while vocal sounds are uttered, things are meant, that is, are matters of discourse.

There are, as stated by Diogenes[*](i.e. the Babylonian.) in his treatise on Language and by Chrysippus, five parts of speech: proper name, common noun, verb, conjunction, article. To these Antipater in his work On Words and their Meaning adds another part, the mean.[*](Probably adverb.)

A common noun or appellative is defined by Diogenes as part of a sentence signifying a common quality, e.g. man, horse; whereas a name is a part of speech expressing a quality peculiar to an individual, e.g. Diogenes, Socrates. A verb is, according to Diogenes, a part of speech signifying an isolated predicate, or, as others[*](Sc. Apollodorus and his school; cf. inf. § 64.)define it, an un-declined part of a sentence, signifying something that can be attached to one or more subjects, e.g. I write, I speak. A conjunction is an indeclinable part of speech, binding the various parts of a statement together; and an article is a declinable part of speech, distinguishing the genders and numbers of nouns, e.g. ὁ, ἡ, τό, οἱ, αἱ, τά.[*](= the, masc., fem. and neut., singular and plural.)

There are five excellences of speech—pure Greek, lucidity, conciseness, appropriateness, distinction. By good Greek is meant language faultless in point

Posidonius in his treatise On Style defines a poetical phrase as one that is metrical or rhythmical, thus mechanically avoiding the character of prose; an example of such rhythmical phrase is:

O mightiest earth, O sky, God’s canopy.[*](Nauck, T.G.F.2, Eur. 839.)

A term is, as stated by Antipater in his first book On Terms, a word which, when a sentence is analysed, is uttered with complete meaning; or, according to Chrysippus in his book On Definitions, is a rendering back one’s own.[*](The author seems to have confused term, which Antipater defines, with definition, which, as Chrysippus says, is simply giving back the meaning in other words. Zeller’s correction ἰδίου ἀπόδοσις for καὶ ἡ ἀπόδοσις comes from a scholion on Dionysius Thrax.) Delineation is a statement which brings one to a knowledge of the subject in outline, or it may be called a definition which embodies the force of the definition proper in a simpler form. Genus (in logic) is the comprehension in one of a number of inseparable objects of thought: e.g. Animal; for this includes all particular animals.

A notion or object of thought is a presentation to the intellect, which though not really substance nor

Species is that which is comprehended under genus: thus Man is included under Animal. The highest or most universal genus is that which, being itself a genus, has no genus above: namely, reality or the real; and the lowest and most particular species is that which, being itself a species, has no species below it, e.g. Socrates.

Division of a genus means dissection of it into its proximate species, thus: Animals are either rational or irrational (dichotomy). Contrary division dissects the genus into species by contrary qualities: for example, by means of negation, as when all things that are are divided into good and not good. Subdivision is division applied to a previous division: for instance, after saying, Of things that are some are good, some are not good, we proceed, and of the not good some are bad, some are neither good nor bad (morally indifferent).