Full Idea
A plausible case can be made for explaining the phenomenon of category mistakes in terms of each of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
Gist of Idea
Category mistakes are either syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic
Source
Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 1.1)
Book Reference
Magidor,Ofra: 'Category Mistakes' [OUP 2013], p.5
A Reaction
I want to explain them in terms of (structured) ontology, but she totally rejects that on p.156. Her preferred account is that they are presupposition failures, which is pragmatics. She splits the semantic view into truth-valued and non-truth-valued.