16 Dec r. 1815

Chrestom. Language

Ch.11 Propositions

Complex propositions

A complex proposition is that which has at least two subjects, with a predicate and copula to each of them: two subjects and as many predicates and copulas.

The general effect of it is to bring to view two entities, each of them real or fictitious, accompanied with an intimation, that by one of them a change is produced in the state or condition of the other.

{Considered in this point of view a complex proposition may be termed a transition-expressing proposition.}

Examples.

1. Eurybeades struck Themistocles.

2. Themistocles was stricken by Eurybeades.

In both these instances, the result expressed is one and the same. But in the first instance the verb employed (a verb of the complex kind of which further on) is in what is called the active voice: in the other, in the passive.

In both instances a change in the state of a certain entity is represented as produced, and a motion is presented as the cause of that change.

But, in the first instance, the entity brought to view in the first place is the entity in which the motion is represented as having had its commencement: the entity which is represented as having been first in motion, and with that same entity the motion so produced by it: in the other instance, it is the entity in which the motion is represented as having had its termination: Themistocles was struck, viz. by Eurybeades.