261
Str. This, perhaps, is what you mean, that those which are spoken in order and mean something do unite, but those that mean nothing in their sequence do not unite.
261
Theaet. How so, and what do you mean by that?
261
Str. What I supposed you had in mind when you assented; for we have two kinds of vocal indications of being.
261
Theaet. How so?
262
Str. One called nouns, the other verbs. The science of language, in all its branches, was young in the time of Plato. Words of general meaning were necessarily used in a technical sense. So here ὄνομα and ῥῆμα are used as parts of grammatical terminology in the sense of verb and noun, though Plato elsewhere employs them with their ordinary meanings. Similarly the distinction between vowels and consonants (Plat. Theaet. 203; cf. Plat. Soph. 253) was at least relatively new, as was that between the active and the passive voice. How important Plato’s part was in the development of linguistic study can no longer be accurately determined.
262
Theaet. Define each of them.
262
Str. The indication which relates to action we may call a verb.
262
Theaet. Yes.
262
Str. And the vocal sign applied to those who perform the actions in question we call a noun.
262
Theaet. Exactly.
262
Str. Hence discourse is never composed of nouns alone spoken in succession, nor of verbs spoken without nouns.
262
Theaet. I do not understand that.
262
Str. I see; you evidently had something else in mind when you assented just now; for what I wished to say was just this, that verbs and nouns do not make discourse if spoken successively in this way.
262
Theaet. In what way?
262
Str. For instance, walks, runs, sleeps and the other verbs which denote actions, even if you utter all there are of them in succession, do not make discourse for all that.
262
Theaet. No, of course not.
