understand, and check the evidence and reasonings that are usually
embodied in language. And as long as meanings are clear, good Logic is
compatible with false concords and inelegance of style.

§ 3. Terms are either Simple or Composite: that is to say, they may
consist either of a single word, as 'Chaucer,' 'civilisation'; or of
more than one, as 'the father of English poetry,' or 'modern civilised
nations.' Logicians classify words according to their uses in forming
propositions; or, rather, they classify the uses of words as terms, not
the words themselves; for the same word may fall into different classes
of terms according to the way in which it is used. (Cf. Mr. Alfred
Sidgwick's _Distinction and the Criticism of Beliefs_, chap. xiv.)

Thus words are classified as Categorematic or Syncategorematic. A word
is Categorematic if used singly as a term without the support of other
words: it is Syncategorematic when joined with other words in order to
constitute the subject or predicate of a proposition. If we say _Venus
is a planet whose orbit is inside the Earth's_, the subject, 'Venus,'
is a word used categorematically as a simple term; the predicate is a
composite term whose constituent words (whether substantive, relative,
verb, or preposition) are used syncategorematically.

Prepositions, conjunctions, articles, adverbs, relative pronouns, in
their ordinary use, can only enter into terms along with other words
having a substantive, adjectival or participial force; but when they are
themselves the things spoken of and are used substantively (_suppositio
materialis_), they are categorematic. In the proposition, _'Of' was used
more indefinitely three hundred years ago than it is now_, 'of' is
categorematic. On the other hand, all substantives may be used
categorematically; and the same self-sufficiency is usually recognised