Re: Some Thoughts on Word Classes
Saul Epstein 
Tue, 25 Aug 1998 21:49:27 -0500

Quotes from: Rob Zook <rzook*informix,com>
Date: Monday, August 24, 1998 9:36 AM
 
> Saul Epstein wrote:
> 
> > Quotes from: Rob Zook <lalaith*unicom,net>
> > Date: Thursday, August 20, 1998 10:12 PM
> >
> > > At 08:06 PM 8/20/98 -0500, Saul Epstein wrote:
> > > >So here's another possible set of classes...
> > > >
> > > >    1. Action
> > > >    2. Entity
> > > >    3. Deixis
> > > >    4. Quality (or State)
> > > >    5. Quantity
> > > >    6. Operation
> > >
> > > Hmmm, I was actually thinking that we could better roll
> > > state into relations, maybe we should discuss this a
> > > little more :)
> >
> > Of course.
> >
> > Let's discard "relation" for the moment, because it fails
> > to really say what needed saying, and go back to the ZC...
> 
> Er, hmmm, yup. In that case, nevermind what I said about
> relations :)

     [major snip]
 
> > Is that any clearer? Or did I miss what you wanted to
> > discuss? ;-)
> 
> Well, I probably wanted to get into a nasty philosophy of
> language snarl involving relations/states and entities, but
> we can ignore that for now :)

As much as I like such things, for several different reasons, my
current inspiration is to see how much of the likely-vast zone of
agreement we can articulate as a means of fleshing out the ZC...

> Oddly, enough this sounds very similar to something I was trying to
> explain to you, a few months back. But regardless, yeah that's how
I
> read the section on qualifiers too.

Fantabulous. I seem to be on a bit of a roll. Jelly, I think. Hope it
doesn't stain. Um, here's this again:

Summary:
ROOT      a particular thing, considered from the "outside"
          as a unit entity, or from the "inside" as an
          [action/state] [done by/characterizing] some other
          entity
v-ROOT    an entity who does the action expressed by ROOT
vdi-ROOT  an entity characterized by the state expressed by ROOT
ROOT-te   an entity, the category of such things as ROOT


In case these prove acceptable, let me explain the "etymology" behind
v-ROOT and vdi-ROOT, since I didn't pull them completely out of the
air. The idea behind the <v> particle is to adapt the <w> from the
pronouns as a kind of relative pronoun prefix meaning "one who..."
(So, <v'dhahq> "one who sings"="singer," <v'ran> "one who
kills"="killer." I actually slipped <uran> into an earlier post when
I was first thinking about this, but then I remembered the <u>
deictic particle...)

<vdi> is intended to modify <v> by adapting the instrumental partical
<ti>, so that the result means something like "by someone/thing..."
(So, <vdidhahq> "sung," <vdiran> "slain." I realize these English
glosses make the terms seem more like adjectives -- and they can
certainly be used as such. But they are then specifically
output-of-process terms. For instance, <dhahq> as a qualifier might
mean "melodious" while <ran> might mean "murderous" or "deadly.")

--
from Saul Epstein
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