Contents 1 Parts of speech 1.1 Additional remarks 1.2 Parts of speech - comments 1.3 An attempt at precision 1.4 Linearization 1.5 The really hard part 1.6 traditional definitions 1.7 More comments 1.8 Conclusion: surrender 2 Lfn "tradisional" 3 Proposas 4 Pronomes 5 Imperos 6 Relijios 7 LFN, circa 1980

Parts of speechEdit

There are two main syntactic categories: argument and predicate. Arguments have as their prototype the noun (which is defined by its reference to physical objects such as persons and things. Predicates have three major prototypes: verbs (defined by their reference to actions, states, etc.); modifiers (defined by their reference to qualities); connectors (prepositions, conjunctions, subjunctions). The syntactic categories derive from simple apposition of an object with an action, quality, or second object ("mommy see", "ball green," "daddy car") in children's earliest speech (and, hypothetically, the earliest speech of the species). two-place predication develops by extending these first utterances with the addition of a second argument ("daddy see" > "daddy see doggie"), or by adding a predicate to two arguments ("mommy ball" > "mommy get ball"). Add clauses, repurposing, and proforms, and the possibilities are endless!

"Arguments"* (nominals): A word or set of words, typically a noun, that is capable of being modified by a predicate.

• Noun (sostantivo, zelfstandig naamwoord): A person, animal, or thing, or something that is being treated as if it were a person, animal, or thing (e.g. a unicorn, a belief system such as Buddhism,...).
  • Common (boy): A word which refers to a category of things or persons. (also events: a birthday, a parade, a horserace, a dance. as the last two - or even three - suggest, it is often a fine line between a verb and a noun: the question is, does the speaker view the event as an entity or as an ongoing action? the dance versus dancing. concepts are similarly difficult: anger, for example, can be viewed as nounlike or verblike. see abstract nouns, nominal verbs, and nominal adjectives, below). The default syntactic function of a noun is as a nominal.
  • Proper (George): A word which indicates a specific individual entity. Names of people, nations, organizations, books, films, pets, etc.
  • Pronoun (he): A word which indicates a thing or person obvious to all involved in the communication, such as the speaker, the listener, nearby people or objects, etc. Pronouns are classified into many categories: personal (I, me), relative (who), possessive (mine), demonstrative (these), indefinite (someone), interrogative (who?), exclamatory (you!), reflexive (myself), reciprocal (each other), etc.
  • Abstract noun (motherhood, beauty, confession?): A word, often derived from a noun, adjective, or verb, but used to name the concept. This is a very problematic category for me!

"Predicates"* (verbals, adjectivals, adverbials, etc) : A predicate is a word or set of words that modifies an argument or connects two arguments, modifying one or both. Predicates come in several valences or "places", indicating the number of arguments it takes. Predicates modify arguments, and they determine the "slots" into which arguments are placed. This is where the patterns of SVO vs SOV vs..., position of modifiers, use of prepositions or postpositions or cases... come into play.

• Verb (predicate, verbo, werkwoord): . Verbs indicate actions, changes, or states. Verbs are often modified, internally or externally, to indicate such things as time, mood, aspect, voice, person, number, etc.
  • Intransitive verb (One-place predicate - "John runs"): Typically, a modification of an argument that involves action, change, or state. In english, we can "augment" intransitive verbs by making them causal and making the original subject the object: "the water boiled" > "he boiled the water". The default syntactic function of a verb is as a verbal.
  • Transitive verb (Two-place predicate - he kissed her): Typically an action which one argument performs and the other is affected by. Distinguished from other relations in that they are commonly used as the main predicate in a predication. These can become reduced, that is, be used with an argument left as understood or generic, e.g. "he cooked" (= "he cooked something"), "he cooks" (= "he cooks things"), which appear to be intransitive.
  • Avalent verb (Zero-place predicate - "it rains", "it snows"): An occurrence, event, happening, which does not specifically involve an argument. Commonly, languages will add an "empty" pronoun (e.g. the "it" in "it rains").
  • Ditransitive verb (Three-place predicate - "they named her Mary"): A relatively unusual predicate that takes three arguments. One acts as the subject of the verb, one as the object, and one in a manner specified by the meaning of the verb but not easily expressed with a preposition or other form. Some languages will insert a "dummy" preposition before one of the arguments ("they named her as Mary) or a copula ("they named her to be Mary").
  • "Special use" verbs
    • Copula: Certain verbs act more like conjunctions in that they relate the subject to a class ("he is a doctor") or a quality ("he is cute"). There are also versions that add more complexity to the relationship (become, seem, etc.). Often used as a "dummy" verb to "up-grade" down-graded predicates: "he is green", "he is running".
    • Auxiliary verb: Certain verbs have developed into special forms, often less variable than regular verbs, that modify the main verb of a sentence or clause in order to indicate mood, aspect, etc. ("he has finished").
    • Proverbs: Just like pronouns, proverbs substitute for more complete verbs as place-holders. In English, "do" is often used in this way.

• Modifier (attribute) (down-graded one-place predicates, i.e. similar to an intransitive verb, but cannot be used as the main predicate of a sentence or clause): A word that modifies an argument in some way, defining it more precisely or adding detail, including these traditional categories:
  • Adjective (aggettivo, bijvoeglijk naamwoord) ("big boy"): Typically, a quality. Requires the use of a verb such as "to be" in order to be used as a main predicate. This function is taking by intransitive verbs in some languages, the verbs having a meaning similar to "is adj". The default syntactic function of an adjective is as an adjectival.
    • Proadjectives: Words such as "such" ("Such language!") could be considered proadjectives.
    • Number: Ordinal numbers and fractions are often considered adjectives. Cardinal numbers, on the other hand, are often considered determiners.
    • Determiner: articles (lidwoord), demonstratives, interrogatives, quantifiers, negatives, and possessive adjectives (varies with language). Often considered a subset of adjectives. Usually closed sets.
  • Adverb (avverbio, bijwoord): speaks to a quality of another predicate: e.g. a verb - "he runs fast", an adjective - "very big man", or even another adverb. Many different types of adverbs, each with their own special qualities: spatial (eg, here, there), temporal (now, then), mode or manner (quickly, slowly), interrogative (how? when? where?), evaluative (well, poorly), affirmation (certainly), dubitive (perhaps, possibly), negation (not), degree (very, minimally), etc. Negations and degree words in particular are often considered separate categories from other adverbs. Other than the modes and evaluative adverbs, these tend to be closed sets. The default syntactic function of an adverb is as an adverbial. (However: see "adverbial" below!)
    • Proadverbs: Words such as "so" ("Make it so!") could be considered proadverbs.

• Connectors (down-graded two-place predicates, i.e. similar to a transitive verb, but cannot be used as the main predicate of a sentence or clause) - These are almost always closed sets of words:
  • Preposition (preposizione, voorzetsel) ("the man in the moon"): Typically puts one argument into a specific relationship to another argument. Included are temporal and spatial relationships, and relationships of use, purpose, and possession. Requires a copula in order to be used as the main predicate in a predication. These also have reduced forms, such as "he went in" (= "he went into the house"), which appear to be adverbs or adjectives. (could be considereds "reduced prepositions", i.e. prepositions with a null complement)
  • Conjunction (congiunzione, voegwoord) ("John and Mary"): Similar to prepositions but typically links two arguments that are not subordinate to one another (making them down-graded reciprocal "verbs", like "he married her/she married him"). Commonly used as well to connect two sentences or clauses, neither one subordinate to the other.
  • Subjunction ("I run because I am afraid", "I eat (in order) to live"): Similar to prepositions, but used to connect a subordinate clause to an argument or main clause. Some words otherwise used as pronouns and adverbs are also used as subjunctions to introduce a subordinate clause.

• I really need to come up with terms other than "argument" and "predicate", as these are used quite differently here. "nominal" is sufficient for "argument", of course. but what to do with "predicate"?!

Repurposed nouns, verbs, etc.

• Adjectival noun - apposition, classifier noun, title ("saint John", "Mississippi river"): A noun qualifying another, more specific, noun. Can be viewed as a reduced subordinate clause ("John, who is a saint").
  • In many languages, nouns have variations, such as the genitive case. This is also an example of an adjectival noun. Other cases, such as the locative, are examples of adverbial nouns.
  • I suggest that words like "today" are actually adverbial nouns.
  • likewise, I suggest that words that are derived from adjectives (e.g. by the addition of -ly, or simply by placement in a sentence, and commonly signifying "in a x manner") are actually adverbial adjectives.
• Adjectival verb - participle. ("working man"): Can be viewed as a reduced subordinate predication ("the man who was working"). Usually requires the addition of a verb such as "to be" in order to be used as a main predicate. These can also be found in reduced form, such as in "the working" (= "the working ones"). They can be followed by a noun representing the object of the original verb - "the man working wood". Note how similar "working wood" is to a prepositional phrase: "the man working wood" - "the man in the wood". One could say that, when "working" has an object, it is not an adjectival verb, but a prepositional verb. In other words, participles can be intransitive ("the waving flag") and transitive ("the boy waving the flag").
  • Participles are also occasionally used as adverbials: "he strolled along, whistling a tune."
• Nominal verb (confession, confessing, to confess): A word derived from a verb (an action, change, or state) treated as if it were a thing, usually involving a morpheme with noun-qualities (-ment, -tion, etc) or otherwise indicating that it is a nominal (-ing, to...). Included here are infinitives, gerunds, and other verbal nouns. Nominal verbs can be used in a generic sense, referring to the entire class of actions or states ("I want to study dance"). They can also be used more specifically, referring to a particular action or class of actions ("this is a delightful dance"). Nominal verbs can often be followed by a noun representing their objects: the confession of sins, confessing sins, to confess sins. Just like participles and verbs proper, they can be intransitive or transitive. [We could be tempted to include more concrete examples in the category of nominal verbs - worker, dancer; toaster, vibrator, etc. However, these are clearly marked as having physical referents by their modifying morphemes. This is, I believe, the key difference between a word that is a true noun and one that is a nominalized verb: true nouns refer to "things", while nominalized verbs refer to "actions".] (I am very unsure whether "confession" is a nominal verb or an abstract noun. while it is obviously derived from a verb, it has no verbal qualities, but rather points to the concept. but I also notice that "confessing" and "to confess" are often used to point to the concept, rather than as an alternative way of using a verb.)
• Nominal adjective: A word, derived from an adjective, but used to name a person, place, or thing, such as in "the beauty" (= "the beautiful one") and "the good, the bad, and the ugly". (unclear: are words like "beauty" and "wealth" nominal adjectives, or are they abstract nouns? I think the latter.)
• Verbal noun?: [We could be tempted consider words like "hammer" in "he hammered the nail" a verbal noun (noun used in a verbal manner). However, it is clear that the meaning of the word has changed and does not refer to the physical instrument, but rather to an action suggested by that instrument.]
• Verbal adjective?: [We could be tempted to interpret the adjective complement of a copula as a verbal adjective. But it is really just an adjective, and together with the copula, they form a verbal.]

Others:

• Interjections or exclamations (interiezione, esclamazioni, tussenwerpsel): Stand-alone expressions of emotion, etc. Oh! Damn! Ouch!

Additional remarksEdit

We should use different words for the function or role of a word or set of words within the sentence than noun, verb, etc.: I suggest using nominal, verbal, adjectival, adverbial, etc., following the use of "adverbial" in adverbial clause, which is one used "as if" it were an adverb. In this way, you could say that an infinitive or gerund is a nominal verb, ie an "action word" used "as if" it were a noun, and that a participle is a adjectival verb, etc.

I really don't like "phrases" and "heads". they seem an unnecessary complication. If we use "nominal" to refer to anything that fits the "space" most commonly filled by simple, concrete nouns, then "nominals" would include nouns (thing-words), infinitives and gerunds, adjectives and participles used to label some group, as well as what we normally would call "noun phrases". The word "head" is not necessary either, because it is the collection of words that forms the nominal (etc) - which of the words is somehow central is irrelevant.

For example, many adjectival and adverbial phrases have prepositions or even participles as their heads!

Then both words and phrases could be classified by these functions:

• nominal
• verbal
• attributional:
  • adjectival (modifiers of nominals)
  • adverbial (modifiers of predicates - verbals, adjectivals, adverbials)

Prepositional phrases are really just adjectivals or adverbials introduced by prepositions, and are identical to phrases introduced by transitive participles! In the same way, nominals (noun phrases) can be introduced by transitive infinitives.

If we were to retain the idea of heads as defining the function of their phrase, then, in "he loves working leather", "working" is a nominal, and, in "he loves to work leather", "to work" is a nominal. This follows from the preceding definitions.

We can extend this to clauses (a predication contained within another predication, or an S within an S):

• nominal clause
• adjectival clause
• adverbial clause

I use "down-graded" to refer to the differences between predicates traditionally understood - i.e. verb phrases - and predicates in the forms of adjectives and prepositions (at least in english). Always keep in mind that, in many languages, what are copulas plus adjective complements in english are verbs instead. Rather than "he is blue", they would say "he blues". Esperanto has the ability to do both.

I seriously think that the term "adverb" should be restricted to those words that are by their nature "adverbial", i.e. have specifically adverbial meanings, rather than being based on adjectives (as in the idea that one could view them as being short forms for "in a x manner"). the latter should be called "adverbial adjectives". this is actually how adverbs are viewed in german, and we all know that germans are very logical! :-)

Parts of speech - commentsEdit

(I hope you don't mind me refering to you by name: You are my only sounding-board!)

• I don't mind at all. Simon

• Participle - Adjectival verb (could be called "adjectivized verbs") . (modifies a noun - "working man"): Can be viewed as a reduced subordinate predication ("the man who was working"). Usually requires the addition of a verb such as "to be" in order to be used as a main predicate. These can also be found in reduced form, such as in "the working" (= "the working ones").these can be followed by a noun representing the object of the original verb - "the man working wood". this is, of course, not traditional (an adjective modified by a noun!?) but note how similar this is to prepositions! simon would say that "working" in "working wood" is a verb, and that the expression "working wood" serves as an adjective modifying "the man". my problem with this is that "working" in "the working man" and "worked" in "the worked wood" are considered adjectives! perhaps we could say that, when "working" has an object, it is not an verbal adjective, but a prepositional verb!'
  • More accurately, I would say that "working" is a verb, and that the expression "working wood" is a non-finite clause functioning as modifier to the head "man". I would never say that "working wood" was an adjective. Simon
    • I didn't say that, either. but I would say that "working wood" was an adjective phrase, since it modifies a noun.
  • I have a hard time with this, so perhaps you can help: I understood you as saying (in previous discussions) that noun, verb, etc. are to be understood syntactically, i.e. in terms of their roles within a sentence vis-a-vis other parts of speech (whereas I see them semantically, as in the old grammars and dictionaries). The phrase "working wood" modifies the noun phrase "the man". It is therefore, by definition, an adjectival phrase. And the head of an adjectival phrase should be an adjective (or a preposition - adding to my confusion). therefore, "working" must be an adjective (or a preposition, which suits me just fine). Where have I misunderstood you?
    • A sentence can be analysed as a tree structure, with individual words (or even morphemes) at the leaves. Each node ("constituent") in the tree has both a category (e.g. noun, determinative, noun phrase) and a function (e.g. subject, predicative, determiner).
      • it seems to me that your categories and functions are the same species: a noun is an entity that can serve as a subject; a determinative has a determiner function; etc. the function defines the category.
      • Here's a sentence with a subject that isn't a noun: "Whether God exists is a big question." Here's a noun phrase in which a something other than a determinative has the function of determiner: "the King of Spain's beard". Functions and categories are clearly distinct if you examine all the evidence. ("Determinative" is the category and "determiner" is the function – at least in CGEL; I always get that the wrong way round, as I did in my initial comments here today.) Simon
      • perhaps I am not being clear: what you call categories and functions are both based on their syntactic role in the sentence. a noun is at the word-level; a noun phrase is just one level up and includes both single words (nouns) and groups of words. what I am saying is that what you call categories, like noun, are defined semantically, and the functions only are syntactic.
      • Ah, I see. I had largely misunderstood you. Sorry! In my view, "noun phrase" is as much a category as "noun" – "noun phrase" isn't a function; unless you think I think it is, then I'm not sure why you've mentioned "noun phrase" here. Simon
    • You are correct that "the man" is a noun phrase, and that "working wood" modifies it. That, however, doesn't make it an adjective phrase. You're confusing function (modifier) and category (adjective phrase), and if you do that, comprehension will certainly elude you. An adjective phrase is indeed a phrase whose head is an adjective. Simon
      • but I thought that the category "adjective phrase" was defined by its function as a modifier, and thereby no confusion is possible..
      • You yourself have admitted that preposition phrases also function as modifiers. They can't be both adjective phrases and prepositional phrases, unless you posit some kind of weird "adjectival preposition phrase" concept – in which case you're just saying "preposition phrase with modifier function" in different words. Simon
      • I believe that "prepositional phrases" are NOT in the same species as "noun phrases", etc. noun phrases are defined by its function; prep phrases are defined by the presence of the prep (it's "head", you would say). so, yes, a prep phrase can be (and usually is) an adverbial phrase or adjectival phrase.
      • You need some clearer terminology, then. The analogy between "preposition : prepositional phrase :: adjective : adjectival phrase" is too strong. Simon
    • I agree that "working wood" can be analysed as a preposition phrase (with "working" as a preposition). I need to read up on the reasoning behind why it's not usually analysed that way, but I suspect it's to do with the fact that the category of prepositions is a closed set, and the fact that "working" displays many verbal hallmarks. Simon
      • keep in mind that I am NOT saying that participles are the same as prepositions, but rather that they play the same role (two-place predicates).
      • OK. Simon
  • Notice that I am trying to meet you half-way by using words like "adjectival verb" - i.e. I acknowledge that "work" is a verb in the sense that it is an "action word", but that it is functioning as the modifier of a noun and is therefore functionally/syntactically "adjectival".
    • I regard "work" as a verb, not because it's an "action word", but because it behaves like other members of the category "verb" in that it functions as the head of a verb phrase. Simon
      • so "verb" is defined by its function as the head of a verb phrase. but, as you point out above, an adjective phrase is defined as a phrase whose head is an adjective. the category is defined by its function in the first case, and the function is defined by its category in the second. if you define everything in terms of its relations with everything else, you really haven't defined it at all.
      • Agreed. These things are ultimately indefinable, and circularity is inevitable. I would actually define "verb phrase" as a phrase with a verb as its head than the other way round. Above, I was responding to your use of the term "action word", rather than attempting a rigorous definition of "verb". Simon
      • I don't agree: categories are definable and noncircular if you define them in by their function OUTSIDE their level of analysis, i.e. semantically.
      • I will watch with interest to see how you get on! Simon
    • I liked your alternative expression "adjectivized verb" better than "adjectival verb" – the latter seems too ambiguous. But you're trying to express the fact that a verb is functioning as a modifier, so "modifying verb" might be better still. That way you keep the function ("modifying") and the category ("verb") as two distinct features. Words have both features at once! For example, "London" in "London taxis" is a modifying noun, not an adjective. Simon
      • since the function of an adjective is to modify nouns, and "London" is a noun modifying another noun, wouldn't it make simple sense to call it an "adjectival noun" (lfn does it better: "nom ajetivin").
      • "Adjectival noun" has the disadvantage of commonly meaning "noun derived from an adjective", which is quite the opposite. "Nom ajetivin" is good, yes, but it begs the question of what "ajetivin" means. I think it just means "functioning as modifier". Your sentence contradicts itself: from the premise that the function of an adjective is to modify nouns, you proceed to admit that nouns can also do this, and so therefore your premise is false. I agree that modifying nouns is the most typical function of adjectives. But while this allows us to recognize the category of adjectives when we encounter it in an unfamiliar language, it doesn't provide us with the means to decide whether any given word belongs to that category, so it's not an adequate definition. An adequate definition must include syntactic criteria as well (e.g. whether the word can function attributively and predicatively; whether it can be graded and/or accept degree modifiers; whether it can accept adverb modifiers; and similar negative criteria). Simon
      • I should have been more careful: "since an adjectival phrase or word is defined by its function, doesn't it make sense to call "london" an adjectival noun?" again, I am trying to develop a better way of talking about these issues by using "adjective" to refer to words that refer to the qualities of things, and "adjectival" to refer to words that are used to modify nominals (noun phrases). at present, the two issues are totally confused and require convoluted discussions like ours to clarify. note that if you don't like my terms (e.g. nominal), just think in terms of phrases (e.g. noun phrase), with the idea that a single noun can also be (and usually is) a "noun phrase".
      • OK, I've finally grasped your theory! It makes more sense now :-) Simon
    • I agree that "working wood" can be analysed as an adjective phrase that includes a noun phrase functioning as object, just as "full of holes" is an adjective phrase that includes a preposition phrase. But I don't think English has any adjective phrases (with non-participial heads) that contain direct objects. So it seems odd to lump "working man" and "man working wood" together as examples of the same syntactic category when the only thing they have in common is that "working" functions as a modifier of "man". Simon
      • I am saying that "working" in both expressions is a verb (action-word), and that "working" and "working wood" are both ajectivals.

• Nominal verb (might better be referred to as "nominalized verbs") (confession, confessing, to confess): A word derived from a verb (an action or state) treated as if it were a thing, usually involving a morpheme with noun-qualities (-ment, -tion, , etc) or indicating special treatment (-ing, to..., etc). Included here are infinitives, gerunds, and other verbal nouns. Nominal verbs can be used in a generic sense, referring to the entire class of actions or states ("I want to study dance"). They can also be used more specifically, referring to a particular action or class of actions ("this is a delightful dance"). note that a nominal verb can often be followed by a noun representing its object! (this is in contrast to "traditional" usage): the confession of sins, confessing sins, to confess sins. (see "participles", below) simon would say that "to confess" (infinitive) and "confessing" (gerund) are verbs when they take an object (I am not sure if he considers them verbs when they do not), and that the combination of the verb and its object is a noun phrase. perhaps the best way to resolve this is to consider "nominal verb" a category in itself, and not a subcategory of nouns (or verbs). (we could view them as predications consisting of a verb with a null subject) (We could also include more concrete examples - worker, dancer; toaster, vibrator, etc. However, these are clearly marked as having physical referents by their modifying morphemes.)
  • I don't say that "to confess" isn't a verb, but I do say that "confess" is a verb in "they forced him to confess" and "they made him confess". It's a verb in a non-finite clause. Similarly, "confessing" is a verb in "confessing his love for her made them both a whole lot happier", and it's in a non-finite clause that happens to be functioning as the subject of the sentence. Simon
  • Do your sources actually consider a gerund and its complement to be a clause?
  • Oh yes. They call it a non-finite clause. They distinguish three types of non-finite clause: infinitival ("I want to go to sleep"), gerund-participial ("she remembers eating a sandwich"), and past-participial ("he got charged with manslaughter"). (The name "gerund-participle" is their quirky name for a specific quirk of English. The main source is The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, by the way.) Simon
    • I would look at the first two as nominal phrases (you can substitute "it": "I want it", "She remembers it"). the third one is an adjectival phrase. Why call it a clause, since clauses are essentially defined as predications within another predication? certainly an infinitive or gerund, with or without an object, doesn't qualify!
    • The fact that you can substitute "it" doesn't make it a noun! It makes it a constituent that functions as object. "I want to go to sleep" is just a concise way of expressing "I want that I go to sleep", and likewise for the other examples. The subject is omitted in that example, but doesn't have to (hence the "cadenas de verbos" in LFN): "I want you to go to sleep" is a concise way of expressing "I want that you go to sleep". How would you analyse that one? Simon
      • you misunderstand. I didn't say they were nouns, I said they were nominals.
    • The gerund-participle in English isn't a category in itself – it's not a distinct part of speech. It's an inflected form of the verb, and it can appear with several different functions, as we've been discussing. To my mind, that's still more evidence that categories and functions are distinct concepts. Simon
    • Of course, the views I'm expressing here are to do with English. In LFN, we can define whatever we like. We can say that "comente" is nothing other than an adjective of a particular subtype (i.e. active participle) that accepts an optional direct object and other such accoutrements (which are normally the accoutrements of a verb...) Simon
      • I am trying to develop a system that can be used for any language whatsoever.

• incidentally, if a noun is something that can serve as the object of a verb, why does simon say that "to work" in "I need to work" is a verb?]
  • "Noun", "verb", etc are examples of syntactic categories (a term that includes lexical categories, a.k.a. traditional "parts of speech", and phrasal categories such as "clause", "NP", "VP", etc). It's wrong to say that "noun", "verb", etc refer to "function", at least in standard modern linguistic terminology, because a "function" is the role that a syntactic constituent plays in its containing constituent. The two fundamental functions are "head" and "dependent". "Predicate" is a special case of "head"; as for "dependents", there's a complicated taxonomy of those, and linguists disagree over the details. Simon
  • I don't say that "to work" in "I need to work" is a verb. I say that "work" there is a verb in a non-finite clause. The clause isn't "functioning as a noun" – that makes no sense, because nouns are a category, not a function. The clause has the function of "object", and is a dependent of the head (predicate) "need". Simon
  • Wait: Sure, nouns are a category. But that category is based on function - the syntactic use of the word within the sentence in relation to other words. Of course, I intended to say "functioning as if it were a noun". Looking forward to your responses! jorj
  • Yes, the category is based on function, but only in a non-technical sense of the word "function". "Function" in syntax has a specific meaning: head, dependent, modifier, predicate, subject, predicator object, determiner are all functions. You can't define a noun by saying "it's a word that can function as the subject of a sentence" because that would make all kinds of other things (including noun phrases) nouns – the terminology would be useless!
    • not really: a noun is in fact a word that can function as the subject. a noun phrase is a word or set of words.... (of course, I would use nominal instead of noun and noun phrase here, because, to me, a noun is a word which represents a person or thing...).
    • Here's a noun: "desk". But it can't function as the subject. You need at least "the desk" to make something that can validly function as the subject. Simon
      • "desk", in my system, is a noun by virtue of the fact that it refers to a thing. "desks", "the desk", etc. are nominals by virtue of the fact that they have certain roles or functions within a sentence. please keep in mind that I am redefining terminology in a way that I feel would be more useful. and yes, I am using "function" with its regular meaning. the functions you list are not actually very relevant to my theory (really, only "predicate" and "modifier" are a part of the system: "modifiers" refers to adverbials and adjectivals, "predicates" refers to verbals, modifiers, and connectors. really, the system has two basic categories: nominals (or arguments, if you like) and things that comment on nominals.
      • "Arguments", "modifiers" and "predicates" would be clearer terminology in my opinion. The problem with words like "adjectival" is that they're overloaded. Even within your terminology, you risk accidentally using "adjectival" to mean "pertaining to an adjective", with bewildering consequences. Simon
      • In my terminology, "argument" and "nominal" are interchangeable. I use "modifier" and "predicate", but primarily as slightly higher-level categories. I don't use these words as adjectives because they are more general than "verbal", "adjectival", and "adverbial", and because I don't much like their adjective forms (modifying and predicating are, of course, possible).
  • (And it would also blur the essential distinction between category and function.) The best definition of "noun" I've seen is something like "a word category whose morphologically simplest members typically denote types of physical object". Simon
  • Your latest definition of noun (as "a person, animal, or thing, or something that is being treated as if it were a person, animal, or thing") is worth discussing. Why single out animals and not places? Or do places count as things? Why not just say "a physical object or something that is being treated as if it were a physical object"? But when we speak of "Buddhism", nobody thinks they're treating Buddhism as a physical object. It's just grouped in with the physical objects for reasons of syntactic practicality.
    • I was just not sufficiently thorough, and should have added "place, idea, etc." I believe people do treat Buddhism as a thing. it is an idea that has been encapsulated in our minds, not too differently than "cat" really refers to "catness".
    • What's a thing? This is circular. People will say it's a thing when asked to describe it, because they're influenced by the syntax. And yes, it's a belief system, which is a kind of concept, and a concept is a kind of "thing". But actions and qualities are also kinds of "things". The whole definition goes soggy at that point! Aren't "to work" and "enormous" and "under" also ideas that have been encapsulated in our minds? Simon
      • you are confusing levels of analysis. we are in the unfortunate situation of having to describe something (language) using that same thing! but when I say "a noun is a thing", I am speaking at a "meta-" level of analysis. the word "thing" is being used as a pointer to cognitive categories (and their ultimate external referents) OUTSIDE of language.
      • So you're reducing it to the cognitive mechanism by which our minds naturally divide the world into things and features of those things (subdivided into qualities and actions). An interesting idea. I will stop interrupting now, and let you proceed :-) Simon
  • The category of nouns (like all categories) has a prototypical central region that contains words for types of physical object. The rest of the category contains the other words that have been placed in that group. There are semantic patterns to be observed, certainly – and some of them are very clear – but those patterns don't define the category. The category is defined by its prototypical members. Simon
    • I thought you said the category was defined by its syntactic function? are you now agreeing with me that "nouns" are things, et al., and that the other words that have been placed in that group are what I call "nominals" (stuff that functions like nouns)?
    • I don't think I ever said that the category was defined by its syntactic function. That would contradict my much-repeated view that the two are distinct concepts. I'm agreeing that the most "nouny" nouns are names for physical objects. But beyond those, there are nouns like "idea" that aren't physical objects. And then beyond those, there are what you call "nominals" (such as "swimming (is good for you)" and "beauty") – which are still paid-up members of the noun category. Simon
      • I very clearly recall you saying that defining terms such as nouns semantically is wrong, and you introduced pieces of that very large book and an article by one of its authors to support that approach. and more recently, you refered to another article (one that attacked "ordinary" people's use of phrases such as "faith is a verb" and "terror is not a noun" as indicative of our ignorance of linguistics!). Anyway, I am defining "nouns" by their referents, which can include things (sorry!) that are "in the mind", ranging from unicorns to Buddhism. there is, of course, a gray area where a word might be transitioning from a nominalized verb into a noun by becoming more "encapsulated", and that is an interesting area to explore.
      • Almost all modern linguists reject the idea of semantic definition of parts of speech, so I'm fascinated to see if you can do better. As for "faith is a verb", and the like, I can't say I'd ever come across such sentences until I read that article. They seem incomprehensible and indefensible, much like the way people claim that certain types of bureaucratic sentence are "passive" when they're clearly not. I shall have to read up on the idea of "things in the mind" – is this a widely accepted concept in psychology? Maybe you should talk of "entities" rather than things, just to highlight that you're not talking about physical objects. Simon
        • "faith is a verb" is an expression used by people who suggest that faith is not static, but rather needs to be realized in actions. the author of that article ingenuously pretends that people are not aware that this is a simile and are confused about nouns and verbs. the author is an elitist ass.

• Incidentally, I agree with your general taxonomy (rooted at argument and predicate). I'm not convinced that conjunctions and subjunctions should be grouped so closely with prepositions. While all three are obviously in the business of "connecting", there's little similarity. Mind you, I've yet to see a satisfying theory of conjunctions and subjunctions! Simon
  • I see them as very closely related. they are (to me) a closed set of highly specialized transitive verb-like words that have lost (?) their ability to stand as predicates on their own. but as you can see, I have a very idiosyncratic way of looking at things.
  • On further reflection, I agree. Note that prepositions don't always introduce a noun phrase: "until recently", "from behind a tree". Simon

• Participles are also occasionally used as adverbials: "he strolled along, whistling a tune."
  • I would say: participles occasionally function as adjuncts. "Adjunct" is a function that is frequently realized by the "adverb" category (i.e. an adverb or an adverb phrase). Preposition phrases also often function as adjuncts: "he hit it with a hammer". In some languages, noun phrases can function as adjuncts: "she ran twenty miles", "ŝi kuris dudek mejlojn". Simon
    • why wouldn't you call these adverbial phrases? I certainly would. how is an adjunct any different from an adverbial?
    • It quite possibly isn't, and we're simply disagreeing over terminology. But the form of the word "adverbial" implies that it's somehow logically related to "adverb", which it isn't. "Twenty miles" is a noun phrase functioning as adjunct. The only connection with adverbs is that adverbs and adverb phrases also often function as adjunct. That seems too weak a connection. But if you prefer to use "adverbial" (and never use it to mean "of an adverb"), that's fine. Simon
    • Note that you can't say *Repeated boiling a kettle is a waste of energy* – it needs "repeatedly". This, coupled with the presence of the direct object, strikes me as clear evidence that "boiling" is a verb there. Simon
      • and I am saying that "boiling" is indeed a verb - but it is functioning as a part of a nominal. in "boiling is a wast of energy", the word itself is a nominal, and so a nominal verb.
      • I agree with that analysis within the terms of your system. Simon

An attempt at precisionEdit

• noun: a word that refers to a thing or person (proper noun), or to a cognitive category of things (common noun), or to a concept that is viewed as thing-like.
• verb: a word that refers to a cognitive category of actions, states, or changes, or to a concept that is viewed as verb-like.
• adjective: a word that refers to a cognitive category of qualities of the referents of nouns.
• adverb: a word that refers to a cognitive category of qualities of the referents of verbs or adjectives.
• other categories of words - pronouns, determiners, prepositions, degrees, negators, conjunctions, subjunctions... - are usually "closed". they have much more restricted use, although each word does have conceptual and/or worldly referents as well (i.e., although they are defined semantically, their syntactic uses are restricted).

• nominal: a word or phrase that is used syntactically in the manner typical of nouns, i.e. they can be "modified" by verbs (and verbials), adjectives (and adjectivals), etc., and vary as to number, gender, case, etc., depending on the language.
• verbal: a word or phrase that is used syntactically in the manner typical of verbs, i.e. they can serve to modify nouns (and nominals) and be modified by adverbs (and adverbials) and vary as to person, number, tense, mood, aspect, etc., depending on the language.
• adjectival: a word or phrase that is used syntactically in the manner typical of adjectives, i.e. they can serve to modify nouns (and nominals) and be modified by adverbs (and adverbials) and vary in ways that depend on the language.
• adverbial: a word or phrase that is used syntactically in the manner typical of adverbs, i.e. they can serve to modify verbs (and verbals), adjectives (and adjectivals), and/or other adverbs (and adverbials).
• one can continue in the manner for other categories, but the usefulness diminishes in the degree that a category is "closed". in addition, "connectors" are down-graded transitive verbs, just like "modifiers" are down-graded intransitive verbs; therefore, they function as adjectives or adverbs, just as "verbals" function as transitives or intransitives.

using these two sets of terms, we can easily talk about nominal verbs (i.e. verbs used in a manner typical of nouns, e.g. a word that refers to an action being used as the subject of a sentence), for example. and we can acknowledge that a set of words consisting of a preposition followed by, say, a determiner, an adjective, and a noun, are altogether an adjectival (the preposition simply introducing the phrase, as a subjunctive might introduce a clause - there being no such thing as a "prepositional phrase" in this system of terms, as there is no "subjunctive clause" in this or any other system I've come across).

one can distinguish between "nominal words" and "nominal phrases", if that is useful. expressions such as "nominal noun" seem redundant, as the basic function of a noun is as a nominal, as opposed to "nominal verb", which indicates a verb that has been nominalized to serve a noun-like purpose in the sentence. in this approach, a "phrase" is not defined by its "head" but by its function in the sentence. in fact, the term "head" is not useful.

The main nominal of a sentence or clause (the one which is modified and qualified by the rest of the sentence or clause) is the subject. the secondary nominal of a transitive verb (even if a nominal verb or an adjectival verb) or a preposition is the object of that verb or preposition. A copula plus its nominal or adjectival complement should be considered together as a verbal that modifies/qualifies the subject.

there exists also an opportunity to talk about morphemes as nominalizers, verbalizers, etc., by the effect they have on the word as a whole, while at the same time acknowledging that morphemes, too, may be defined semantically as noun-morphemes, verb-morphemes, etc. so "-er" refers to a person, machine, tool, and the like, which can nominalize a verb such as "work". "worker" then becomes a noun in its own right, and functions as a nominal. of course, some morphemes have little semantic content at all, but serve primarily to alter function: "-ing" pretty much just nominalizes or adjectivalizes a verb, while allowing it to remain a verb (i.e. referring to a category of actions, states, or changes).

• I can't decide whether to consider a word like "worker" a noun or a nominal verb. "worker" does in fact refer to a category of persons. but it is made of a verb plus a noun affix. it appears to me that affixes sometimes change the root to a nominal, and sometimes to a real noun with a referent. and sometimes the change is ambiguous, as in gerunds and infinitives that sometimes point to an abstract noun rather than just being a nominal verb.
• there are alterations of the root morpheme that do the same thing, such as the cases in latin that add semantic detail and repurpose the root. in other languages, that function is performed by a preposition, a determiner, a clitic, or whatever. and and in still other languages, that function is performed by position: move "hammer" from a nominal slot to a verbal slot, and the move changes the semantic referent as well as the function.

moving in the opposite direction, we can speak of complex nouns, complex verbs, etc, i.e. a set of words that have a single referent, such as "the United Kingdom" or "George Boeree". or a single conceptual category, such as "purple finches". you could then say that "purple finch" is a complex noun, composed of an adjective and a noun, functioning as a nominal.

I am sure you think I'm crazy, but having done this, I feel like a great weight of confusing and contradictory jargon has been lifted from my poor old brain. of course, since this is an idiosyncratic system, I can only use it to talk to myself - and, maybe, you (poor thing!). :-)

LinearizationEdit

how does one go from a multidimensional semantic construction to a linear syntactic one? I call the process "linearization", and it differs from one language to another. a loose example:

• 1. which noun or nominal is to be used as the subject of the sentence?
• 2. which verb or verbal is to be used as the major verbal of the sentence? place it after the subject.
• 3. are there any objects to the verbal? place it after the verbal.
• 4. are there any prepositions with objects? place the objects after the prepositions.
• 5. are there any adjectives? place them before the nominals they modify.
• 6. are there any adverbs? place them appropriately.
• 7. are there any adjectivals or adverbials? place them appropriately.
• 8. etc.

one could conceive of this linearization process as a matter of magnetic fields or "stickiness" that attract various words to each other by dint of their semantics. adjectives tend to stick to the front of nouns in english, for example.

naturally, there are various subsets of linearization that have some independence: the prepositional phrase is one example that remains the same no matter what kind of sentence. another, more complex example is the clause, which has its own internal rules prior to being placed in the context of the larger sentence.

but there are also several kinds of linearizations, especially the declarative, the interrogative, and the command, which are chosen depending on the social intent of the sentence. there isn't really a need for transformation rules to change some supposed fundamental form into another, but rather a small collection of different patterns for different purposes.

The really hard partEdit

"nominals" et al. are at the syntactic level and "nouns" et al. are at the semantic level. next are the cognitive level (in the mind yet external to language) and the reality level (external even to the mind). because we experience reality "with" or "through" our minds, we can consider (for our purposes!) the cognitive and reality levels as a single entity. the connection between experience and ultimate reality is problematic to say the least! here are my very rough definitions of terms:

thing: a material object, entity, external to the mind. things have a degree of consistency that, although capable of action or change, does not thereby lose its identity. also, things continue to exist, even when not perceived. some things are not perceivable, but are inferred from their effects on that which is perceivable. examples of things include persons, animals, plants, minerals, tools, machines, locations, constructions, etc. if we are to be especially precise, a thing exists only as an individual entity, for example, that particular cat over there, whom we call Fluffy.

category: a cognitive construct referring to a range of things that share certain features or qualities to such a degree that they are perceived as belonging together. a category is a construct, often represented by a word (a common noun), that can be used to describe or point to an individual thing existing in the material world. Fluffy is a thing. "cat" is a category that can be used to describe or indicate Fluffy and similar things. one may note that, to be exact, even things involve a degree of categorization: Fluffy at different times and places requires a cognitive construct named "Fluffy" that ties the individual experiences together.

concept: a cognitive construct referring to a complex collection of things, actions, qualities, etc., that is experienced as being contained, as having a certain consistency or wholeness. for example, we have the concept "Buddhism", which contains a huge amount of detail, and yet we view as having coherence. (note that we are actually wrong about that! our tendency to reify concepts is at the root of endless confusion.) also, when we say "work is good" or "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", we are "conceptualizing" a category of actions or qualities and treating them in a manner similar to the way we might treat a thing, which I call "nominalization".

action: an alteration of a thing, e.g. "Fluffy jumps". movement, change, even when detached from any specific thing, e.g. it rains. not all actions are visible, but are inferred: "Fluffy thinks". many actions also affect a second thing, sometimes involving alterations of that second thing: "Fluffy eats the mouse". state: a specific absense of an action. often a physical reorganization of a thing as a result of an action. e.g. Fluffy sits. actions actually refer to cognitive constructs that categorize these physical events. we may talk about a particular action ("that kick that Beckham made on that particular date and time"), but we rarely give them proper names.

state: a condition of a thing, e.g. "Fluffy sits". states generally refer to the specific absence of an action, or the action-less result of an action, or even the action-less preparation of an action. "attitudes" are also states ("I believe it"). states also include actions that are continuous and/or long-term. as a class, states fall between actions and qualities. states are usually represented by intransitive verbs, but may also be conceptualized and viewed as adjectives. like actions, states actually refer to cognitive constructs that categorize these physical events.

quality: something that differentiates one thing from another, but does not take the nature of a thing itself, nor the nature of an action or state. e.g. Fluffy is "orange". some qualities are inferred from categories, actions, states, or other qualities: Fluffy is "intelligent". qualities actually refer to the cognitive constructs that categorize these physical features. qualities don't inhere in some kind of coherent, continuous form in the way that a thing does. a color, for example, only exists when it "adheres" to a thing. we rarely view a particular quality of a particular individual thing ("the color of Angelina's eyes in the moonlight") in such a way that we are tempted to give it its own proper name.

traditional definitionsEdit

as has been shown in psychology, I believe it is a grave mistake for theorists in any field to use a traditional word in a manner that does not accord with traditional usage. apparently, while I wasn't looking, linguists have been doing exactly that, and then vilifying other linguists (labelled "old grammarians" who write "out-dated dictionaries") as well as the population at large for using these old words "incorrectly" (usually with all kinds of snooty, ingenuous examples of others' lack of education). but even those snooty linguists acknowledge that, for example, there are "archetypal" nouns that do in fact refer to "people, places, or things".

one of my daughters, when in elementary school, was asked by her teacher whether "dance" was a noun or a verb. my daughter said it was a verb, because it pointed to an action. she was told she was wrong. I think she was right.

(oxford american dictionary)

• noun - a word (other than a pronoun) used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things (common noun), or to name a particular one of these (proper noun) .
• pronoun - a word that can function by itself as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this).
• verb - a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.
• copula - a connecting word, in particular a form of the verb be connecting a subject and complement.
• adjective - a word or phrase naming an attribute, added to or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it.
• determiner - a modifying word that determines the kind of reference a noun or noun group has, for example a, the, every. See also definite article , indefinite article .
• adverb - a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word-group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, quite, then, there)
• preposition - a word governing, and usually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause, as in “the man on the platform,” “she arrived after dinner,” “what did you do it for ?”
• conjunction - a word used to connect clauses or sentences or to coordinate words in the same clause (e.g., and, but, if).
• sentence - a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.
• clause - a unit of grammatical organization next below the sentence in rank and in traditional grammar said to consist of a subject and predicate. See also main clause , subordinate clause .
• phrase - a small group of words standing together as a conceptual unit, typically forming a component of a clause.
• subject - a noun phrase functioning as one of the main components of a clause, being the element about which the rest of the clause is predicated.
• predicate - the part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the subject (e.g., went home in John went home)
• object - a noun or noun phrase governed by an active transitive verb or by a preposition.
• complement - one or more words, phrases, or clauses governed by a verb (or by a nominalization or a predicative adjective) that complete the meaning of the predicate. (in systemic grammar) an adjective or noun that has the same reference as either the subject (as mad in he is mad) or the object (as mad in he drove her mad)

More commentsEdit

George, I really like your theory. It has a simplicity of structure that's extremely elegant and appealing.

• I am most gratified!

I like the idea of bringing cognitive categories into the definition of the parts of speech. I was previously put off by your use of the word "semantic" – but as you point out, cognitive and semantic are not the same thing. The cognitive categories certainly make the definitions less vacuous, even though they still raise plenty of questions.

However, you say it's a grave mistake to abandon the traditional usage of a term, but isn't that exactly what you're doing when you call "beauty" a nominal adjective and "confession" a nominal verb? Similarly, you ponder whether "hammered" is a verbal noun, but "verbal noun" traditionally means something quite different.

• Yes, I agree. And I am uncertain about "beauty" and "confession". Unlike "confessing" and "to confess", these have morphemes (old ones whose individuality has been rather absorbed into the root) that indicate that they are true nouns, albeit abstract ones. I am leaning towards restricting the use of "nominal adjective" and "nominal verb" to those that truly retain adjectival and verbal qualities, such as "to confess", "confessing", "a beauty", etc. "Verbal noun" is, of course, a different story. But at this point, I doubt that "verbal nouns" actually exist.

"Confession" can be both the act of confessing and the resulting utterance, as we've discussed extensively with regard to LFN. How does your theory handle this? Is "confession" sometimes a nominal verb and sometimes a (nominal) noun? And how do you handle a verb like "hammered" if it's not a verbal noun?

• Good questions! Regarding confession: perhaps this is an example of evolution caught in the act. I don't know latin, so I am uncertain of the roots, but I would venture a guess that "confession" was originally applied to the act, i.e. was a nominal verb, but has slowly evolved into an abstract noun, referring to the result. Regarding "hammer" as a verb, it is clearly a metaphoric extension of "hammer" as a noun, but it also clearly refers to the action, and not to the object. It is therefore a separate word, albeit a homonym with an obvious relation.
• I believe you're right about "confession". It seems odd to regard "hammer" as two separate words when English contains many thousands of similarly verbed nouns that mean "apply the noun to", and people form new ones every day – shouldn't the theory take this into account? Simon
  • yes. I am reconsidering some of the things I've said earlier.

I don't understand why you reject phrases and heads. Your theory is founded on the concepts of arguments and predicates, which inherently generate phrase hierarchies. "Pinsones strana purpur" has two possible interpretations ("delinearizations") differing in hierarchical structure.

• I don't reject phrases, really. I just find it simpler to just say "nominal" (etc.) for both single words and groupings of words. "Strana purpur" could be two adjectivals or a single adjectival composed of an adverbial and an adjectival.

Your section on linearization speaks of words being attracted to each other by dint of their semantics, but your theory claims that "dance" in "this complicated dance" is only nounlike by dint of its syntax, and not its semantics. These can't both be true.

• That relates to my uncertainty I mentioned above: I lean towards viewing "dance" as two words, homonyms, one a noun and one a verb, that still retain their obvious historical connection, rather than as a verb and a nominal verb.

Regarding whether "dance" is a noun or a verb, this can't be decided in English without seeing the context. Your theory argues that "dance" is represented cognitively as an action, and is therefore always a verb (just nominalized or whatever in a given context). This is not unlike Esperanto morphology, where each root has a "character" and "danc-" is indeed of verbal character. In English "dance" can be (in your terminology) a nominalized verb too, just as "dansa" can in LFN. But surely you didn't expect your daughter's teacher to be teaching this non-standard terminology? :-)

• In esperanto, you have specific morphemes that indicate that a word refers to an object or to an action or to a quality (etc.). "danso" (if that is correct) would therefor not be a nominalized verb, but rather an abstract noun composed of a verb morpheme plus a noun morpheme (-o). And no, of course I don't blame the teacher. I just feel that sometimes, the intuition of the less-well-educated is worth a good look. Sometimes it makes sense to strip away all the accumulated theorizing and accompanying jargon!
• Standard Esperanto morphological theory regards "danc-" as a verb morpheme, and "-o" as a nominalizer. The verbal sense of "danc-" is thus retained in "danco" (and "danca"). "Martel-", on the other hand, is a noun morpheme, so "martelo" denotes a hammer, not the act of using a hammer. To form a noun for the action of "marteli", you have to use a suffix to retain the verbalness ("martelado"). Simon
  • interesting. presumably, "danco" is a noun (since it points to a "thing" loosely defined) and "danci" is a verb (since it points to an action). this implies that we can't so easily generalize my terminology to morphemes, since "danc-" is a verb-morpheme and "-o" is a noun-morpheme. you can't strictly call "-o" a nominalizing morpheme, because it doesn't make "danco" a nominal - it makes it a noun! in lfn, adding -or to a verb does the same thing. but adding -nte is different in that it adjectivalizes/nominalizes the verb - i.e. it stays a verb, but plays a nominal part. so we have two classes of morphemes (in addition to the root/stem): morphemes that change the meaning of a root (i.e. what it "points to", which may well change its function as well), and morphemes that change the function of the root in the sentence (without changing it fundamental meaning). and what's more, you can't always tell very easily which is which! -ing in english can do both, as in "working is good" (-ing as creating a nominal verb) and "the working deserve more" (-ing as making a new noun). I am getting dizzy.
  • That makes sense. It corresponds to the way participles were presented in almost the same breath as the verbal inflections in traditional grammars. In any system of categories, there will some things that don't pigeonhole neatly. Simon

I feel that your theory groups too many things together, blurring certain useful distinctions. You say that a nominal is used syntactically in the manner typical of nouns, but this doesn't help us explain the syntactic variation exhibited by the different types of nominal that exist. (Infinitives don't exhibit number and gender, for example.) However, this may just be because you've presented an outline of your theory, and not gone deep into the details.

• Yes, that's a good excuse. I think I will use it! :-)

Your theory says that our minds model the world as a collection of things, actions, qualities, and so on, and that it's therefore unsurprising that our minds model our languages in this way too. True. But is this not then a theory of cognition, rather than of surface syntax?

• I don't know.

Conclusion: surrenderEdit

after all this, I think I will stick with "mainstream" linguistic terminology, except when I have a specific problem with it. it is easier to say "prototypal noun" for people, places, and things (and concepts!?) and use "noun" and "noun phrase" instead of introducing "nominal". etc.

I think that Chomsky is correct in considering the verb phrase as including the direct object (as well as the copula plus its complement).

I continue to view infinitives and gerunds as nouns. I think they are special nouns that retain some verbal qualities, and so I like to call them "verbal nouns". likewise, I view participles as adjectives - "verbal adjectives". and I prefer to name phrases after their functions, rather than their heads. this becomes problematic with prepositional phrases, for example, but I simply recognize that "prepositional phrase" is a expression used to talk about a preposition with its object, which is then used as an adjective phrase or an adverb phrase.

I like substitution tests: if you can sub "it" or "he" for a word or phrase, it is a noun or noun phrase. if "do" or "does" - verb or verb phrase. if "such" or "such a" - adjective. if "so" - adverb... I could go on for various sub-categories, but I won't.

here's some interesting thoughts: "hitting" in "hitting is not nice" can be replaced with "it". but in "hitting children is not nice", it cannot be - only the phrase "hitting children" can be. it seems that verbal nouns and verbal adjectives really are a different animal altogether. it is possible to sub "do" for the "hit" part of "hitting" in both sentences ("doing children is not nice" - to say the least!), but only if you do indeed add the -ing. that is not true when you add, say, -tion or -er (contemplation and baker can clearly be replaced by "it" or "he"). "do" can replace the "bake" in "baker" (but not the "contemplate" in "contemplation"), but it isn't necessary. hmmm.... curious.

• The fact that "do" can't replace the "contemplate" in "contemplation" is merely a lexical quirk. Simon

a question: in english, is there really any semantic difference between infinitives and gerunds? between "to hit" and "hitting", for example?

• I don't think there's generally much difference, although you may be able to find some corner cases where the two have idiomatically diverged. But the syntax of nonfinite clauses in English is distinctly nontrivial. I wouldn't expect to be able to make a clean substitution of the type you seek.

I guess the only solution is to accept the idea of the nonfinite clause. and clauses can serve in place of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. (just like prepositional phrases can serve as adjectives and adverbs.) it doesn't sit well with me that these clauses don't have a subject. perhaps I could think of them as having a null subject.

• "Nonfinite" means "unlimited", of course, and subject is one of the limits of a finite verb. Simon
  • I suspect that "nonfinite" refers to tense, aspect, and mode - not the subject. besides, the object also limits a verb! besides, gerunds often take a subject - in the form of a possessive determiner. let's just face it: they are both and neither nouns or verbs. they are vouns. or nerbs.
  • Wikipedia's first sentence on the subject refers to the absence of a subject. (But Wikipedia is often confused.) You're right that gerunds can take a subject: they're probably the only type of nonfinite clause that can. "Nerbs" is hilarious and brilliant. But I still prefer to say that these words are verbs embedded in clauses that have functions typically associated with nouns. It's a tree structure, rather than a single atomic item. The verb is contained with a nounlike thing. The nerb is the entire branch! Simon

my obsession with subjects and prototypical nouns comes from my interest in speech development in children. nouns are just more basic - and arise earlier - than any other part of speech, and so others seem to be additions that qualify the nouns - whether they are adjectives or verbs. that's why I see verbs as modifiers.

• Linguistics doesn't disagree. It regards "subject" as a type of head (typically implemented by a NP), and "predicate" as a type of dependent (typically implemented by a VP). As you say, Chomsky was right to treat "object" as a type of dependent within the predicate. Simon
• However, most people have been taught that "every sentence must contain a verb", and if all you're doing is trying to explain basic grammar to a novice, it can be less confusing to treat the verb as a central fixture with everything else (including the subject) being its fittings (with roles indicated by prepositions, or cases, or word order, etc). Simon

All in all, it has been fun "testing the limits"!

Lfn "tradisional" Edit

Pronomes:

• me
• tu
• il (mas)
• el (fema)
• lo (neutra e cosa)
• se (refletante)
• on (nondefinada)
• nos
• vos
• los

Posese:

• mea
• tua
• sa
• nosa
• vosa
• losa

Verbos:

• -va (pasada)
• -ra (futur)
• -rai (ipotesal)
• -r (infinitiva)
• -nte (partisipio ativa)
• -da (partisipio pasiva)

Averbos de ajetivos:

• -mente

ProposasEdit

proposas ajetival:

• 1. nom (prep) ci (sujeto) verbo...
• 2. nom (prep) do (sujeto) verbo...

proposas nomal:

• 3. sujeto verbo ce sujeto verbo...
• 4. sujeto verbo (prep) ci (sujeto) verbo...

proposas averbal:

• 5. sujeto verbo si sujeto verbo...
• 6. sujeto verbo (prep) do sujeto verbo

esplicas:

• como ci: ci, cual (paroletas pronomal); per ce (paroleta averbal)
• como do: do, cuando, como, cuanto, esce (paroletas averbal)
• como si: si, car, afin (paroletas sujuntal)

PronomesEdit

Singular	Plural / Noncontable
	Tota
	Multe
	Poca
Algun, Alga cosa	Alga
Cualcun, Cualce cosa	Cualce
Cadun, Cada cosa, Cada
Nun, No cosa

	Creol aitian	Papiamento
Alga	kek	algun
Algun	yon moun	un hende
Alga cosa	yon bagay	un cos, algu
Tota	tout	tur
Cada	chak	kada
Cadun	tout moun	tur hende
Cada cosa	tout bagay	tur cos
Cualce	nenpot	cualke
Cualcun	nenpot moun	un hende
Cualce cosa	nenpot bagay, anyen	un cos, algu
Multe	anpil, bann, paket (bunch)	muchu
Poca	kek, enpe	poco

ImperosEdit

• de un loca (site, area, etc): impero x-an
• de un fundor: impero de x
• de un popla: impero x (ajetivo)

RelijiosEdit

jeneral: -isme, -iste

LFN, circa 1980Edit

• alfabet, phonetics, spelling
  • a, b, c ([k]), d, e, f, g ([g]), i, j ([j]), l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, v, z
  • syllables may end in f, s, m, n, l, or r
  • e and o are short in closed syllables
• articles
  • definite
    • singular - la
    • plural - le
  • indefinite
    • singular - un
    • plural - di
  • infinitive/gerund - lo
• nouns
  • no plural marker other than articles
  • no gender
• adjectives
  • comparison
    • plu, la plu
    • min, la min
• numerals
  • cardinals precede the noun
    • un, du, tre, catro, sinco, ses, sete, oto, nove, des, desun, desdu..., sento, mil
  • ordinals follow the noun
  • months
    • januari, februari, marso, aprile, majo, juno, julio, agusto, setembre, otobre, novembre, desembre
  • days
    • lundi, mardi, mercedi, jovedi, venedi, saturdi, dominico
• pronouns
  • demonstratives
    • ela, esta
  • interrogatives/relatives
    • ci - what?, which?, who? (adjective and pronoun the same)
    • ce - that..., who...
    • to refer to people specifically: ci om?
  • personal
    • me, te, el, nos, vos, los
    • indefinite: un, om
    • reflective: se
• verbs
  • presente = -
  • past = a
  • future = va
  • imperfect: adverb
  • perfect: jam
  • inceptive: adverb
  • conditional: si
  • infinitive/gerund (used as noun): lo
    • following another verb: -
  • questions: if not containing ci (etc), end in ,e?
  • participles: no special form
    • expressed with relative clause: la om ce ama...
  • reflexive: se for third person, singular or plural, follows verb as object
  • passive: se preceding the verb, after a or va
  • impersonal: un or om
  • negative: ne, preceding a or va
  • copula: e
• adverbs
  • identical to adjectives; follow verb
• prepositions
  • de, a, ...
• conjunctions
  • i, o, i...i, o...o
• si, no
• sentence structure
  • subject - verb phrase - (object)
  • noun phrase: article - (quantifiers) - noun - (adjectives)
  • verb phrase: (ne) - (a/va) - (se) - verb - (verb) - (adverbs)
  • subordinate clauses:
    • noun - ce - verb phrase - (object) (if noun is subject of subordinate verb)
    • noun - ce - un/om - verb phrase (if noun is object of subordinate verb)
    • noun - ce se - verb phrase (if noun is object - passive form)
    • if noun is the subject of the main verb, close subordinate phrase with el
    • noun - ce - noun2 - verb - prep (if noun is object of a preposition, e.g. "the house that the boys were in")