Even if we add the grammatical object of Quoth to the analysis, the Predicate term is still a general name. Hudibras is only one of the persons speaking in past time who have spoken of themselves as being in a certain mood of suspicion.[1]
The learner may well ask what is the use of twisting plain speech into these uncouth forms. The use is certainly not obvious. The analysis may be directly useful, as Aristotle claimed for it, when we wish to ascertain exactly whether one proposition contradicts another, or forms with another or others a valid link in an argument. This is to admit that it is only in perplexing cases that the analysis is of direct use. The indirect use is to familiarise us with what the forms of common speech imply, and thus strengthen the intellect for interpreting the condensed and elliptical expression in which common speech abounds.
There are certain technical names applied to the components of many-worded general names, Categorematic and Syncategorematic, Subject and Attributive. The distinctions are really grammatical rather than logical, and of little practical value.
A word that can stand by itself as a term is said to be Categorematic. Man, poet, or any other common noun.
A word that can only form part of a term is Syncategorematic. Under this definition come all adjectives and adverbs.
The student's ingenuity may be exercised in applying the distinction to the various parts of speech. A verb may be said to be Hypercategorematic, implying, as it does, not only a term, but also a copula.
A nice point is whether the Adjective is categorematic or syncategorematic. The question depends on the definition of "term" in Logic. In common speech an adjective may stand by itself as a predicate, and so might be said to be Categorematic. "This heart is merry." But if a term is a class, or the name of a class, it is not Categorematic in the above definition. It can only help to specify a class when attached to the name of a higher genus.
Mr. Fowler's words Subject and Attributive express practically the same distinction, except that Attributive is of narrower extent than syncategorematic. An Attributive is a word that connotes an attribute or property, as hot, valorous, and is always grammatically an adjective.
The expression of Quantity, that is, of Universality or non-universality, is all-important in syllogistic formulæ. In them universality is expressed by All or None. In ordinary speech universality is expressed in various forms, concrete and abstract, plain and figurative, without the use of "all" or "none".
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.