Re: Subcategorisation (Was :response to John(lojbab) on sarcu)

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

mi'e .djan. .i la kolin. cusku di'e

> I now claim that the distinction between set, masses and individuals is an
> obligatory grammatical SUBcategory. The level of abstraction is another such
> (I'm still wondering about this idea of 2nd level abstractions).

What is the distinction between a "grammatical category" and a "grammatical
subcategory"?

> But I must disagree with your examples.
> "le se cmima" is not a set. It is one or more sets, each set taken as
> an individual.
> "le gunma" is not a mass. It is one or more masses, each mass taken as
> an individual.

I take your point, although it is a confusing one.  I believe, however,
that it is sound to say things like:

        le cmima cu cmima le se cmima
        The member-I-have-in-mind is-a-member-of the set-I-have-in-mind.

even though the x2 of the outermost "cmima" (the second one in surface order)
normally would be followed by a description beginning with "le'i" or the like.
So although "le se cmima" is one or more sets viewed as individuals, this
view does not make them other than sets, and sets at the "se cmima" level
are the same sets as those at the "le'i" level.

> The pamoi terbri of 'se cmima' (ie the remoi terbri of 'cmima') subcategorises
> for a set. '(ro) le (su'o)'  takes the items subjectively selected by the
>  selgadri
> one by one: it does not subcategorise, so the items may be sets, masses or
> individuals.
> Thus (for example) 'lei se cmima' does make sense, of a sort - it means 'the
> mass of sets (with members ...)'

Agreed.  Likewise "le'i se cmima" is the set of certain in-mind sets.

> The subcategorical distinction is lexical and in a sense semantic; but it is
> not an intrinsic semantics of the thing described, it is in the semantics of
> how the thing is being related to the rest of the sentence. It is perfectly
> possible to describe the same collection of (say) people as 'le prenu',
> 'lei prenu' and 'le'i prenu' - but the claims that can truthfully be made
> about these descriptions are in general different.

Agreed.

> All of the above goes for abstraction. The pamoi terbri of 'fasnu' is
>  subcategorised
> for abstraction, just like the pamoi terbri of 'rinka', and indeed the pamoi
>  terbri of
> 'nu'. The form is not enough to tell us whether a sumti is +abstract or not:
> we also need some lexical information (and, with pro-sumti, some anaphor as
> well). But this does not vitiate the fundamental significance of these
>  subcategories
> to the language.
> 'le nu mi limna'
> is a sumti which is +specific -veridical -mass -set +abstract
> 'le fasnu'
> is a sumti which is +specific -veridical -mass -set +abstract
> but you need the lexical entry for 'fasnu' to know this

Why don't you argue that "le fasnu" is some event(s) seen as concrete thing(s)?
That would be consistent with your reasoning above.

> On the other hand
> 'le xamgu'
> is +specific -veridical -mass -set
> with no specification for 'abstract'.

Presumably this is because both events and things can be good?

> There is a further issue here, on the extent to which abstracts are
> further subcategorised (eg, actions, states etc.) I haven't really been
> following the discussion on this one, but I think it centred on the
> semantics, and hasn't discussed the subcategorisation status.

--
John Cowan              sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.