Lecture 7 — The definition of enunciation

17a2. Yet not all speech is enunciative; but only speech in which there is truth or falsity.

17a3. Truth and falsity is not present in all speech, however; a prayer, for example, is speech, but it is neither true nor false.

17a5. Let us therefore consider enunciative speech, which belongs to our present inquiry, and omit the other kinds, for the study of these belongs rather to rhetoric and poetics.

Yet not all speech is enunciative. Having defined the principles of the enunciation, the Philosopher now begins to treat the enunciation itself.

This is divided into two parts.

In the first, he examines the enunciation absolutely;

in the second, the diversity of enunciations resulting from an addition to the simple enunciation.

The latter is treated in the second book, where he says: since an affirmation signifies something about a subject (19b5; [205]).

The first part is divided into three parts.

In the first, he defines enunciation;

in the second, he divides it, at: first affirmation, then negation (17a8; [88]);

in the third, he treats of the opposition of its parts to each other, at: since it is possible to enunciate (17a26; [109]).

About the first he does three things:

first, he states the definition;

second, he shows that this definition differentiates the enunciation from other species of speech, at: truth and falsity is not present in all speech, however (17a3; [85]);

third, he indicates that only the enunciation is to be treated in this book, at: let us therefore consider enunciative speech (17a5; [87]).

The point has just been made that speech, although it is not an instrument of a power operating naturally, is nevertheless an instrument of reason. Now, every instrument is defined by its end, which is the use of the instrument. The use of speech, as of every significant vocal sound, is to signify a conception of the intellect. But there are two operations of the intellect. In one are found truth and falsity; in the other, not. Aristotle therefore defines enunciative speech by the signification of the true and false: yet not all speech is enunciative, but only speech in which there is truth and falsity (17a2).

Note with what remarkable brevity he signifies the division of speech by saying: yet not all speech is enunciative, and the definition by saying: but only speech in which there is truth or falsity. This, then, is to be understood as the definition of the enunciation: Enunciation is speech in which there is truth or falsity.

True or false is said to be in the enunciation as in a sign of true or false thought, but true or false is in the mind as in a subject, as is said in Metaphysics (Metaphysics 6 CHECK CHAPTER 1027b17–1028a5.) and in the thing as in a cause, as is said in the book Categories (Categories, bk. 5, 4a35–4b9.)—for it is from the facts of the case (that is, from a thing’s being so or not being so) that speech is true or false.

Next, he shows that this definition differentiates the enunciation from other speech, when he says: truth or falsity is not present in all speech, however (17a3).

In the case of imperfect or incomplete speech, it is clear that it does not signify the true or false, since it does not make complete sense to the mind of the hearer and therefore does not completely express a judgment of reason in which the true or false consists.

Having made this point, however, it must be noted that there are five species of perfect speech that are complete in meaning: enunciative, deprecative, imperative, interrogative, and vocative.

But it should be noted that a name alone in the vocative case is not vocative speech, for some of the parts must signify something separately, as was said above. So, although the mind of the hearer is provoked or aroused to attention by a name in the vocative case, there is not vocative speech, unless many words are joined together, as in, “O blessed Peter!” Of these species of speech, the enunciative is the only one in which there is truth or falsity, for it alone signifies the conception of the intellect absolutely, and it is in this that there is truth or falsity.

But the intellect, or reason, does not just conceive the truth of a thing. It also belongs to its office to direct and order others in accordance with what it conceives. Therefore, besides enunciative speech, which signifies the concept of the mind, there had to be other kinds of speech to signify the order of reason by which others are directed.

Now, one man is directed by the reason of another in regard to three things:

first, to attend with his mind, and vocative speech relates to this;

second, to respond with his voice, and interrogative speech relates to this;

third, to execute a work. In relation to this, imperative speech is used with regard to inferiors, deprecative with regard to superiors. Optative speech is reduced to the latter, for a man does not have the power to move a superior except by the expression of his desire.

These four species of speech do not signify the conception of the intellect in which there is truth or falsity, but a certain order following upon this. Consequently, truth or falsity is not found in any of them, but only in enunciative speech, which signifies what the mind conceives from things. It follows that all the modes of speech in which the true or false is found are contained under the enunciation, which some call jurative or suppositive. The dubitative, it should be noted, is reduced to the interrogative, as the optative is to the deprecative.

Then, Aristotle says: let us therefore consider enunciative speech (17a5). Here he points out that only enunciative speech is to be treated.

And he says that the other four species must be omitted as far as the present intention is concerned, because their investigation belongs rather to the sciences of rhetoric or poetics; but enunciative speech alone belongs to the present consideration.

The reason is that this book is ordered directly to demonstrative science, in which the mind of man is led by an act of reasoning to assent to truth from those things that are proper to the thing. To this end the demonstrator uses only enunciative speech, which signifies things according as truth about them is in the mind. The rhetorician and the poet, on the other hand, induce assent to what they intend not only through what is proper to the thing, but also through the dispositions of the hearer. Hence, rhetoricians and poets for the most part strive to move their auditors by arousing certain passions in them, as the Philosopher says. (Rhetoric, bk. 1, ch. 2, 1356a2, 1356a14; bk. 3, ch. 1, 1403b12.) This kind of speech, therefore, which is concerned with the ordination of the hearer toward something, belongs to the consideration of rhetoric or poetics by reason of its intent, but to the consideration of the grammarian as regards a suitable construction of the vocal sounds.