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Re: Nouns, verbs, adjectives... and why they're point

From:Joshua Shinavier <jshinavi@...>
Date:Thursday, December 10, 1998, 12:05
> > I have yet to meet someone who could explain just what the distinction betw= > > een > > nouns, verbs, and adjectives is supposed to represent; > > I feel that you answered yourself to your own question : PoS is mainly based
on aspectivation, that is : on degree of integration. So if you flatten that vector you don't have any distinction anymore in PoS. in English i feel there are roughly from least to most integrated : verb, participle, subclause, adjective, compound. in japanese : verb/verb adjective, subclause, noun. In Khmer : verb/adjective, noun.
> in Danove"n I reckon : word, operator.
It's true that there is no clear dividing line between semantic words and cases/some operators -- a semantic word which is used quite commonly in a "peripheral" position (and seldom as the subject or the verb) and is especially abstract (relating to thought rather than physical reality) may become a case (and cases may be used as operators, though they *also* may be used as ordinary semantic words). But this distinction is for convenience only and does not correspond to any clear conceptual distinction. It's a "harmless" split, as cases and semantic words may be used interchangeably -- an adjective with an object is the very same thing as a case used as an operator. The logical operators (and, or, etc.) and such are of course another matter. Nouns you cannot be opposed because there is no process (not *progress*) so everything is *frozen*, no reversive is implied. In general that's true, but what about nouns like "fall", "event", "change"? Or static verbs like "know", "stand", "exist"?
> Danove"n : noun matches from verb to noun :-) But you still have the operators
needed, see ? I think it might eliminate a lot of confusion if I stopped calling the Danoven "PoS" (which are only positions, not classes) nouns, verbs, etc. A "noun" is a word (say, "don" -- something "good") used in a certain position, while a "verb" (say, "donya" -- was good) is a word used in another position. But "don" might also be used as the equivalent of an operator: "done" (an "adjective" form) --> "davan done marelaynii" = "a doing which seems good to a malicious person". The only difference is that with an operator you needn't alter the object, whereas here we had to add the adjective-object suffix -aynii. Cases and other upwards-branching operators (sorry, I'm getting a little technical here...) are convenient but not strictly neccessary, and conceptually there is *no difference at all* between such an operator and a semantic word. Er, what was the question? :-)
> > _/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ Joshua Shinavier =20 > > _/ _/ _/ Loorenstrasse 74, Zimmer B321=20 > > _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ CH-8053 Z=FCrich =20 > > _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Switzerland =20 > > _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ http://members.tripod.com/~Paradox5 > > > > Danoven/Aroven: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/5555/ven.htm