Reflections such as the preceding will shew us the infinite variety
of the functions of words in propositions, and it is curious to compare
what we see in our examples with the simple & rigid rules which
logicians give for the construction of propositions.
If we group words together according to the similarity of
their functions, thus distinguishing parts of speech,
11.
it is easy to see that many
different ways of classification can be adopted.
We could indeed easily imagine a reason for not classing the word
“one” together with “two”,
“three”, etc., as follows:
11). Consider this variation of
our language-game 2).
Instead of calling out, “One
slab!”, “One cube!”,
etc., A just calls
“slab!”, “cube!”,
etc., the use of the other numerals being as described in
2).
Suppose that a man accustomed to this form (11)) of
communication was introduced to the use of the word
“one” as described in 2).
We can easily imagine that he would refuse to classify
“one” with the numerals “2”,
“3”, etc..