Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/866

* SENSITIVITY. 788 lies. I See Auditio.n.) Since sensations may be iuvestigatuil willi ii'gaiU to their dillcrent as- pects or alliibutcs (quality, intensity, extent, and ilmatiou), we can fuither speak ut a qtialitatire, intensive, exte»sii-e, ami temporal sensibility. (See Li.mex.) Consult: Feelinev, Elemente dcr Psychophysik (Leipzig, 1880) ; Kueipe, Outlines of Psychology, translated (Lon- don, 18n5). SENSORITJM (Lat., sense or organ of sensa- tiuni. llie rolloetive organ of sensation or jiereeption. The cortex or gray matter of the brain, with the important ganglia at its base, is usually meant by this term in mo<lorn (isychology. It was long attempted to determine some one point in the lirain where the soul is especially lo- cated or centralized, and to this point the name of sensorium was applied in the older psychological speculations. The fancy of Descartes made it a small body near the base of the brain, called the pineal gland. The recent views of the nervous system repudiate the idea of a central point of tliis nature: in consciousness the brain generally is active, although under different impressions and ideas the ciirrents may be presumed to follow difi'ercnt nerve tracks. Consequently no meaning is now attached to a sensorium in psychology, as distinct from the cerebrum at large. See NER- VOUS System and 1!rain-. SENTENCE (Lat. sententia, opinion, trom sen li re. to perceive). In grammar, an expression of articulate speech, either oral or written, which is, in the judgment both of the speaker and hearer, an organic whole. The sentence is divided into two parts, the subject and the predicate. The subject is that of which something is predicated; the predicate is that which is stated or asked con- cerning the subject. It is, however, possil)le to have a sentence in which the predicate, or, more rarely, the subject is suppressed, if it may be readily supplied by the hearer, or is present in the mind of the speaker. This usage is character- istic of the interrogative, imperative, and ex- clamatory types, and some scholars deny that such sentences which contain no expressed sub- ject or predicate are real sentences. On this view the most primitive form of sentence is prob- ably the assertive or predicative, as He roines. From this type was developed the dubitative or potential sentence. Perhaps he comes, and the in- terrogative type. Docs he come? Here may be seen the subjectless sentence in such an expres- sion as Come? with the answer, A'o? he. or (7s) he (cominfi) ? with the answer. No. she. The ques- tion of the origin of the imperative type of sen- tence, as ;S7o/),' John! is a difficult one. It seems on the M'hole most probable that this was the most primitive of all forms of the sentence, for it nuist be borne in mind that the imperative mood and the vocative case were originally mere interjections, the most primitive of all forms of speech. (See Inter.tections : Language.) Evi- dence seems to show that there is in the so-called single-membered sentence, even in its earliest form and occurrence, an ellipsis of one of the two members. The cry of an animal is in a sense a predicate to which the subject is supplied by the hearer. The relation of the subject matter of a sen- tence to its verbal form is studied most explicitly In logic, where propositions are classified accord- ing to the nature or degree of their predications. SENTENCE, The proposition, in best usage, is the verbal ex- pression of the judgment which is a mental act. The main differentiations of propositions in tra- ditional logic are into affirmative and negative — IJc comes. He docs not come ; — and into categori- cal, hypothetical, and disjunctive — He comc», If he comes ue shall see him, He may or he may not come. The logical elements of a predication, the subject, copula, and predicate, corres])ond very closely to the grannnatical elements of the sen- tence, and seem to furnish a basis in the nature of reasoning for the analysis of grammatical forms. In certain modern logical developments, however, theories of judgment consider all prop- ositions as predicates who.se subject is reality or the orderly system of human knowledge. Ac- cording to this view, there is a tacit predication in every complete expression, in the interjection as well as in the categorical affirmation. Proposi- tions, or rather judgments, are then graded u]jon a psychological scale of belief and certainty — the interjection represents the inevitable and unques- tioned; the categorical affirmative (or negative) re])resents a conclusion of certainty after doubt; the hypothetical proposition represents a gen- eralized case, which is certain, provided the hypo- thetical element be granted or occur ; and the dis- junction is a predication of uncertainty within the limits covered by the subject matter of the proposition. All grammatical forms of the sen- tence are thus more or less elaborate analyses of complex mental states in which each verbal unit represents an abstract of some quality, or predi- cate of the subject matter of thought. The simplest states are reflected in the single-mem- bered sentence, while the more advanced and in- volved states necessitate various types of verbal complication. Sentences are furthermore classed as simple, compound, and complex. The simple sentence consists of a single subject and a single predicate, as, He corner. The compound sentence is com- posed of two or more .subjects and predicates, either of which sets forms in itself a simple sen- tence, and whose parts are normally connected by a conjunction (q,v.), as He comes here and he (joes home. The complex sentence is either a simple or compound independent sentence, part of which is modified by a dependent sentence, normally introduced by a pronoun (q.v. ), but not forming by itself a simple independent sen- tence, as He icho wishes comes, and he who is caper that more may come goes that he may call them. The compound or paratactic type of sen- tence is almost certainly more primitive than the complex or hypotactic sentence. Consult : Del- briick, Verglcichende Syntax der indogermn- nischen Sprachen, vol iii. (Strassburg, 1900) ; id., Grnndfragen. der Sprachforschung (ib., 1901): Wundt, VoVcerpsychologie, i., "Die Spraehe," (Leipzig, 1900) •.id..l^prachgesch'iichtewid Sprnch- psychologic (ib., 1901; Gabelentz, f^prachwis- sensehaft (2d ed., ib., 1901) ; Paul, Prinzipien der fiprachgcschichte (3d ed., Halle, 1898) ; •Tacobi, Compositnm iind Xchenf)at~ (Bonn, 1897) ; Hermann. Gab es im Tndoge^-mnnischen Vehensat::e? (Giitersloh, 1894) ; Miklosich, finhjel-tlofse fOitze (Vienna. 1883) : Sigwart, Tm- per.mnalirn (Freiburg. 1888) : Kimball, fitriic- ttire of the English l^enfence (New York, 1900). For the legal aspect, consult Bosanquet, Logic (London, 1888).