Categories of concepts that are relevant for grammatical rules are arranged in the empathy hierarchy:
| 1st | 2nd | ||||||||
| SAP | bystander | ||||||||
| present | absent | ||||||||
| in speech situation | |||||||||
| human | non-human | ||||||||
| higher animal | lower animal | ||||||||
| animate | inanimate | ||||||||
| individual | mass | ||||||||
| thing | place | ||||||||
| object | abstract | ||||||||
Abstract concepts occupy the bottom of the empathy hierarchy. They form a hetereogeneous category. For some grammatical operations and constructions, it is necessary to subclassify this further. Starting at the level of the ‘place’ category, the hierarchy may be prolonged downwards as follows:
| place |
| time |
| manner |
| quantity |
| ... |
The dots at the lowest level indicate that the classification is not complete. At this level, there are abstractions based on propositions. Examples of the categories contained in the table are the following:
| place | Linda and Irvin conversed in the vestry. |
| time | Linda and Irvin conversed at midnight. |
| manner | Linda and Irvin conversed with difficulty. |
| quantity | Linda was completely lost. |
The concept categories of the upper three levels of the hierarchy of abstract concepts either count as objects or are easily hypostatized to the status of objects. They may be coded by basic (non-derived) nouns, but also by adverbs. They are the ones that implied circumstants belong to.