Herb writes:
"Craig,
I think there is an unexpressed assumption lurking in what you wrote,
namely, that a category is a set of properties that its members may
share to varying degrees. This is how I understand category. That is,
categories, especially in grammar, are not discrete. They have fuzzy
edges and they bleed into each other, and the reason is that members of
categories, that is, words that share a lot of specific properties, may
also differ from each other on other properties. It’s the properties
that are more important than the categories. Categories are simply
convenient, and sometimes inconvenient, short hand for places where
larger numbers of properties intersect. When you write “It seems to me
that numerals are more like determiners than they are like adjectives,
though the ordinal numerals act more like determiners than the cardinal
numbers do”, you’re talking about properties, not categories.
Unfortunately, as I find every semester, undergrads have been so
indoctrinated into categorial thinking that it’s often very difficult to
break them of the habit.
Expect category blur!
Herb"
Thanks, Herb, for saying what was rattling around incoherently in my
head. The class/function distinction that Craig is talking about is
somewhat problematic because the functions of an item are part of what
defines it as a member of a class. But as Herb notes, particular
categories have more and less prototypical functions: It seems to me
that the pre-noun modifier slot/function is more prototypical for a
possessive (genitive) expression than a postverbal one:
- This is my mother's coat.
- This coat is my mother's. (predicate N or predicate A?)
- You can have my mother's. (nominal)
The last, as I pointed out in a recent post, no doubt derives from
shortening the full phrase, whereas the former is does not have such
ancestry.
Determiner is an important notion and, to my mind, must be included in
any good description of English. I also feel strongly that it is a bad
idea to call demonstrative determiners and other anaphoric determiners
(like 'his') pronouns. Whether you call determining a category or a
function, it is not a nominal function. I was very glad to see the
notion of anaphora (having an antecedent) brought up in this discussion;
anaphora is what makes items like this "pronouny".
There are important differences between determinative elements in a
noung phrase and other modifier types. In "that blue ball", "that" and
"blue" are very different. Determinatives (at least the prototypical
ones) relate the head noun to the speech situation or the speaker &
hearer's viewpoint (Craig's metaphoric uses)--this is what allows us to
call them deictic. "Blue" does not relate "ball" to the speech
situation; it describes the ball.
Craig's observation about metaphorical demonstratives is very apt. We do
use the demonstratives to indicate metaphorical distance, and we also
use them to indicate textual distance, when we use 'this' to refer to a
previous clause, for instance. Metaphor does a tremendous amount of work
for us in grammar. (Consider the transitivity of perception verbs: When
we 'see' something, we don't do anything to it; if anything, it imposes
itself upon us. Same when we 'like' something. It's no accident that
numerous languages express "I like" as "it pleases me" (Spanish, German,
etc.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] • Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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