Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

or
The Development of Supposition Theory in the Later 12 th through 14 th Centuries 185
Some donkey which is of-every farmer a thing is brown.
Some donkey which is every farmer’s thing is brown.
In general then if the possessor term precedes the possessed, the two terms occur
in independent denoting phrases. If the possessed precedes the possessor, then
together they form a complex term with the possessor term occurring in a phrase
that modifies the possessed term. 34
2.9 Syncategoremata and Exponibles
It was common for writers to discuss categorical propositions which have additional
syncategorematic signs in them which affect semantic interpretation. One standard
example is ‘only’, as in:
Only a man runs
Such a proposition is exponible, that is, it can be expounded into some other form
of words which display the semantics of the proposition. The usual expounding of
the sentence given is:
or
A man runs and every running-thing is a man 35
A man runs and nothing other than a man runs 36
Exceptives are usually treated as exponibles:
No man except Socrates is running
is expounded as:
Socrates is running and no man other than Socrates is running
Also popular were categoricals with constructions with certain special verbs, such
as ‘begins’ and ‘ceases’. Sherwood [SW XV.3 (110)] gives a typical analysis:
34 These options were studied in some detail by later followers of Buridan. See [Karger, 1997].
35 Buridan SD 1.6.3 (54) has “But as far as ‘Only a man runs’ is concerned, it should be
said that it has to be converted into a universal affirmative, namely, ‘Every runner is a man’.”
This omits the ‘A man runs’ part, but the analysis is an affirmative proposition with existential
import, and so it entails ‘A runner is a man’ which converts to ‘A man is a runner’.
36 Buridan SD 4.2.4 gives this analysis. The expression ‘other than’ is itself a syncategorematic
sign, and so the second exponent itself needs exponing. Peter of Spain S III.6 (107) gives a similar
analysis: “As to the other problem, what an exclusive word signifies, the answer should be that
it signifies the same as the expression ‘not with another’, or a privation of the connection a whole
has with a part; e.g. ‘Only Socrates is running’, that is Socrates is running and nothing else or
Socrates is running and no other man is running.”