Rick Harrison, On 08/07/2008 21:53:
> While working on the current revision of the ULD I've made a few changes in
> the categories. Here's how they are organized now, with a few examples of
> what's in each category. There's a subtle flow from each category to the
> next, a hidden (something for which there is no word).
[...]
> On the other hand, all categorizing schemes are arbitrary. Pondering the
> best category for a concept sometimes seems fun but sometimes seems like a
> waste of limited time and energy. So in the long run I plan to remove rigid
> categories from the ULD and invite people to contribute alternative
> classification schemes.
Classifications like the ULD's are useful as a way of ensuring that one has semantic space
sufficiently and evenly covered. In working on my own conlang I have found that
it is very useful to include argument structure as a criterion. By 'argument
structure' I mean what Lojban calls 'place structure' or 'sumti(-place)
structure'. In a language in which grammatical behaviour mirrors logical
properties, members of the same semantic category behave alike if and only if
they have the same argument structure, and it's these that form natural rather
than arbitrary categories.
--And.