Re: Word classification (was Re: The philosophical language fallacy (was Re: Evanescence of information (was Re: Going NOMAIL: Honeymoon)))

Mostly I just use the usual, traditional "parts of speech".

Nouns I divide into genders or concordial noun-classes; I have many but I've
discussed them here before.

Dividing pronouns, or adjectives, or adverbs, or adpositions, or conjunctions,
into classes, is done in one of the traditional ways when necessary, and is not
very far-reaching in effects.  Pronouns, adpositions, and conjunctions, are
closed classes, and not very big ones.

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For me the interesting possibility which has not been discussed in a manner
suitable for inclusion in a textbook or encyclopedia -- or, at least, I have seen
no such discussion -- is classification of verbs.

The kinds of verbs have been discussed on this list before, but there wasn't an
organized consensus resulting from that discussion, as far as I know.  And as
far as I know the same is true of linguistic literature in general.

Several interesting systems have been proposed.

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One is Vendler's aktionsarts; activities, achievements, accomplishments, and
states.

(Van Valin gives four binary characteristics verbs might have; I've forgotten
what they are, though.  I think +-cause, +-punctual, +-telic may be among
them.)

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Another is;
states;
changes of state;
cause change of state.

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Another classifies verb by the possibility that they can have a complement
clause as a participant.  There are three groups;
Verbs that can't have a clause as a participant;
Verbs that must have a clause as a participant (like think, say, wish);
Verbs that may, or may not, have a clause as a participant.

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Another seeks to characterize clauses by the kinds of participants in their
cores;
S
A U
S E
A U E

where "S" stands for "Subject" -- both most agentive and most patientive;
"A" stands for "Actor" -- most agentive but not most patientive;
"U" stands for "Undergoer" -- most patientive but not most agentive;
and "E" stands for "Extended-core participant"; neither most agentive nor most
patientive.

(Possibly "most agentive" and "most patientive" should be thought of
pragmatico-semantically rather than purely semantically; "most saliently
agentive" and "most saliently patientive", where "salience" refers to the
speakers attitude, and probably means "topical and/or focal".)

But that's not exhaustive; some clauses have no terms directly in their cores,
others have four, and perhaps some are best thought of in other ways.

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Another, relevant for at least some languages (but perhaps not all), classifies
clauses by number of participants, by grammatical person of participants, and
by animacy of participants.  This results in ten classes:
* Impersonal clauses with no participants.
* Clauses with one participant, which is a speech-act-participant.
* Clauses with one, third-person, animate participant.
* Clauses with one, third-person, inanimate participant.
* Clauses with two or more participants, all of which are speech-act-
participants.
* Clauses with two or more participants, all of which are animate third-persons.
* Clauses with two or more participants, all of which are inanimate third-
persons.
* Clauses with two or more participants, at least one of which is a speech-act-
participant and at least one of which is an animate 3rd-person, but none of
which are inanimate.
* Clauses with two or more participants, at least one of which is an inanimate
3rd-person and at least one of which is an animate 3rd-person, but none of
which is a speech-act-participant.
* Clauses with two or more participants, at least one of which is a speech-act-
participant, at least one of which is a 3rd-person, at least one of which is
animate, and at least one of which is inanimate.

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Would it be possible to gather together the verb-classification systems that
have been proposed or discussed on the CONLANG-L list, at least since it
began its current format, into something coherent and organized?

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