Logicians also use "categorical" to refer to a theory with just one model. --Charles On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Graham White <graham@eecs.qmul.ac.uk> wrote:

One factor might be that the philosophical tradition also has the terminology "category", but means rather different things by it, and they tend to use "categorial" (I think, but I haven't really checked). In particular, both Kant and Husserl use categorial a lot. So (since we started using the word category later than the philosophers did) saying "categorical" is a way of avoiding confusion.

(Philosophers do use the pair hypothetical/categorical as a way of talking about preconditions for assertions, but that's so different from what we do that it's unlikely to cause confusion). All of this is off the top of my head, and could do with checking.

Graham

On 06/09/12 19:39, peasthope@shaw.ca wrote:

...

Apologies in case this story is in the archive. I failed to find it.

According to online dictionaries, categorical and categorial can be synonyms. Almost everyone seems to prefer categorical whereas categorial comes from the simple rule of replacing the last vowel of the noun with "ial".

So, is the preference for categorical just an inheritance from early authors? Is there a stronger reason to use it? Is the explanation in the archive?

Thanks, ... Peter E.

[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]

Peter Easthope (peasthope@shaw.ca) proposed:

According to online dictionaries, categorical and categorial can be synonyms. Almost everyone seems to prefer categorical whereas categorial comes from the simple rule of replacing the last vowel of the noun with "ial".

So, is the preference for categorical just an inheritance from early authors? Is there a stronger reason to use it? Is the explanation in the archive?

It's a lovely "simple rule", Peter, but where does it apply? Certainly not to Allegory, Anthropology, Biology, Botany, Catastrophe, Economy, Geology, History, ..., Numerology, Ornithology, Philosophy, Psychology, ..., Topology, ..., Zoology. "Arterial", from artery, and "peripheral", from periphery, look more like exceptions to, rather than instances of, any rule. Or am I overlooking masses of other evidence? Anyway, has anyone started speaking yet (in English) of Kant's "categorial imperative"? Cheers, -- Fred [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]

Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine <p.l.lumsdaine@gmail.com> added:

Both constructions have plenty of examples; the OED online’s wild-card search is useful here, e.g.

http://www.oed.com/search?searchType=dictionary&q=*orical&_searchBtn=Search.

This gives 81 words with -orical, against 279 with -orial. The -orial examples are mostly from verb roots — dictatorial, professorial, etc.

Of course, these two don't stem from any "dictatory" or "professory", or?

— but with some exceptions: armorial, (im)memorial, and so on. I’m not enough of a linguist to see any full explanation for which words get which suffix.

The question is not which sort of ending occurs more frequently, -orical or -orial, but whether there's a "rule" by which a final "-y" on a noun gets converted to a final, adjectival, "-ial". I suggested earlier, by a long list of such nouns, that, if there is such a rule, it's more honored in the breach than in the observance. Again, if there is such a rule, why does it not apply to the nouns bigotry, burglary, comedy, empathy, felicity, poetry, progeny, prosody, registry, sodomy, sophistry, story, symphony, therapy, ..., zealotry? We have neither storial nor storical, for instance (despite "historical" (but not "historial") from history), nor ... (left to the reader) ... . Even for words like memory, remedy, or testimony, the results of the *+y => *+ial "rule" have meanings rather far from the adjectival "relating to the notion of *+y " meanings that most *+ical constructs derived from corresponding *+y nouns have. Memorial, for example, is a noun, signifying an object serving to recall a given memory, not an adjective signifying "relating to memory"; remedial, though an adjective, signifies, "serving to remediate", not "relating to the notion of a remedy"; and a testimonial is, again, a noun, not an adjective meaning "of, or related to, testimony". Perhaps only arterial, from artery, comes close, but even it means "flowing as through an artery", rather than "related to, or having to do with, arteries". And alluvial, jovial, sartorial, are words in the *+ial camp that do not, however, arise from any application of Peter Pease's proposed "rule", any more than do radial or medial -- or their ^c^ counterparts radical and medical: there is no noun alluvy, jovy, or sartory -- or rady or medy -- to apply such a rule to, any more than there is a cony to engender conical, or comy for comical.

But in the case of categories, the OED backs up what others have written: categorists are/were simply following standard usage. “Categorical” is older and more widely used, going back to 1598, and with plenty of both colloquial and technical usage. “Categorial” appears in 1912 in philosophy, and from the 50’s in linguistics, but remains mostly restricted to these fields. Google N-grams gives a quick view of the comparative frequency:

Comparative frequency of these endings is -- must I say again? -- irrelevant. (Ah: and Pease's "rule" doesn't work on "frequency", either? How comial :-) .) Cheers, and peace, -- Fred [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]

Hi, Peter (w/o any copy to categories@mta), Ah, the advantages of a Latein-Gymnasium education: you look in the right places for relevant answers :-) . Thanks for the breath of fresh air! Cheers, -- Fred --- ------ Original Message ------ Received: Sat, 08 Sep 2012 09:26:57 AM EDT From: selinger@mathstat.dal.ca (Peter Selinger) To: peasthope@shaw.ca Cc: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Re: Terminology; categorical versus categorial.

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, the etymology of "categorical" derives, via Latin, from Greek kategorikos, which seems to be a Greek adjective derived from kategoria.

This seems to be consistent with other English words deriving from Greek adjectives ending in -kos, such as logikos (from logos) and graphikos (from graphein), explaining "geographical", "psychological", and so on.

I found one online source claiming "Greek adjectives that end in -kos do not describe the substance out of which something is made. They describe the force that is animating the thing in question", but I don't know if it's a reliable source. See also page 28 in this book (from 1772, copyright probably expired):

books.google.com.ar/books?id=o6EDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA28

-- Peter

peasthope@shaw.ca wrote:

...

Apologies in case this story is in the archive. I failed to find it.

According to online dictionaries, categorical and categorial can be=20 synonyms. Almost everyone seems to prefer categorical whereas=20 categorial comes from the simple rule of replacing the last vowel of=20 the noun with "ial".

So, is the preference for categorical just an inheritance from early=20 authors? Is there a stronger reason to use it? Is the explanation=20 in the archive?

Thanks, ... Peter E.

[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]