Restrictions on conjunction, was Re: Help: Ergative VOS Conjunctions

In a message dated 12/7/2003 1:02:26 AM Eastern Standard Time,
fuscian@OPTONLINE.NET writes:


>"He's a Democrat and proud of it."
>"The grasshopper mouse is a rodent and carnivorous."
>"He's a Democrat and lonely."
>The first sentence is the best one (probably because it's idiomatic), and
>the second two sound kind of odd. All of them feel somewhat forced, as if
>somewhere in the back of my head I know that a rule is being broken in order
>to form them. I wouldn't use any of these as evidence against conjunction of
>like elements. Is there anything more natural-sounding?


They all sound OK to me.
How about:

He's either stupid or a liar.
Sauron is evil and a threat to all mankind.
The ex-CEO was either a criminal or else not smart enough to know what was
going on.
This is a bargain, and very well made.
That picture is beautiful, and also a perfect example of the artist's Blue
Period.

(Come to think of it, if you wanted to accept these while maintaining that
only like elements can be conjoined, you could always maintain that we're
conjoining whole clauses, or VPs, and then deleting some material, so that it only
appears that we're conjoining a adjective and a noun.)

To make this more conlang-relevant:

What have people here done with conunctions in conlangs?  What restrictions
are there on what can be conjoined?

Doug

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