Note 468 — Chapter I

It will be observed that both in this case and in the case of or, we get rid of the ambiguity by making the words occur in the predicate of a subordinate sentence. Mr Johnson expresses the substance of the last three paragraphs in the text by pointing out that “common speech adopts the convention: Subjects are externally synthesised and predicates are internally synthesised” (Mind, 1892, p. 239). In other words, and and or occurring in a predicate are understood as expressing a conjunctive or an alternative term ; but occurring in a subject they are understood as expressing a conjunctive or an alternative proposition.