"package store"

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:49 PM +0100 9/1/00, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>
>>I'm going down to the {wine/liquor} store to pick up a merlot.
>>I'm going down to the {liquor/#wine} store to pick up a single malt.
>>What's your favorite liquor?  {Single-malt scotch/#Merlot}.
>
>BUT the last one is bad because it jumps a stage in the taxonymy.  I
>wish I could draw a tree diagram in e-mail.  I'll settle for this:
>
>LIQUOR1 -->  LIQUOR2/SPIRITS    WINE    BEER    CIDER
>LIQUOR2 -->  SCOTCH GIN VODKA  BOURBON  ...
>WINE  -->  MERLOT, CABERNET, SAUV BLANC, PINOTAGE...
>
>Sentences 1 and 2 use LIQUOR1.  If sentence 3 has LIQUOR1 as its
>sense, then the answer 'wine' would be ok. The answer 'merlot' is
>strange because the LIQUOR2 reading was expected, and merlot isn't a
>kind of LIQUOR2.  On the LIQUOR1 reading 'merlot' is strange in the
>same way that "What's your favorite performance genre?  Seinfeld" is
>odd. In giving the 'single malt' answer, the LIQUOR2 reading has been
>assumed.

I take your point but I'm not convinced, except of the fact that my
example may have been poorly chosen, although I did deliberately make
it "single malt scotch" rather than "scotch" just to make sure the
two were on the same hierarchical level, but then I wasn't assuming a
distinction between two senses of liquor (in my usual attempt to hew
to Grice's Modified Occam's Razor and foreswear the multiplication of
senses).  In any case, I get a similar contrast in

   What's your favorite liquor?  {Scotch/#Wine}

where these would be at the same level of my hierarchy, but again
perhaps not of yours.   ("Wine" is of course a perfectly good
response to being asked what my favorite drink is, or beverage.)
More important, re

>Actually, I can give you an example of 'liquor' meaning 'wine and
>spirits (not beer)'.  A certain member of my family gave up 'liquor'
>because he couldn't handle it (won't even eat something in a wine
>sauce), but he still drinks beer (he finds it easier to slow down
>when drinking too much beer, I take it).

--if someone swears to me "Lips that touch liquor shall never touch
mine", is it OK for me to go on guzzling beer, even if I better pass
on the vino to be on the safe side?  (Or can I just explain I thought
it was LIQUOR2 they had in mind?)