[Corpora-List] PS:minimal changes in a paragraph (based on a corpus it appeared) ... (2nd attempt (after first one was deleted))

[Albretch Mueller]

> There is certainly something intersubjective that is roughly
> captured by traditional dictionaries.
~
 I use "intersubjective" in a somewhat idiosyncratic way. As we
verbally communicate, trade, even "think", ... inner- and
outer-intersubjectivity goes on. "Repeatability" (even for logical
constructs), "similarity" and "truth" are, in the same sense,
intersubjective as well
~
 In which way do you mean dictionaries are intersubjective?
~
> We can also recover
> a great deal of meaning from symbols produced by brains that
> crumbled into dust many millennia ago.
~
 Yes, we can. Nonetheless, their brains and ours -are- still
communicating (in the sense that "they" are making us not only
understand -them/their lives as individual persons/their
cultures/societies- better, but also -ourselves-) as intersubjectively
as if we were communicating realtime and face to face.
~
> But I also believe that if we want to simulate the kinds of
> processes that people do in understanding each other (either
> in person or through strings of symbols) we need to do a lot
> of processing that has strong functional similarities to what
> happens in their brains.
~
 John, this is exactly where our thinking critically differs!
~
 Due to the intersubjectivity of our semiosis, the kinds of processes
that people do in understanding each other (as I see them
(obviously!)) do not have to have "strong functional similarities"
(and here I assume you mean of a physical and/or structural kind) for
them to -communicate-. If they "understand" each other or not to me is
not determining for communication to happen, because the mind-body
link is essentially semiotic.
~
 Sure, there is some physics (and here I mean "physics" in an
overloaded way as bio-, physio-, neuro-, … logical) contriving the
functional similarities of whatever happens when people communicate,
we share our same physical reality, we share genes, which determines
our outer "physical" phenotype and how we relate to our environment,
neuronal paths run in almost exactly the same way for genetic reasons,
... but this is as far as those "similarities" go; when we communicate
there is an essential "arbitrary", semiotic element that is very much
part of the game
~
 For example, there are people who lack one side of the brain
(literally and physically (as some people are born with other physical
abnormalities, say, a missing limb)). However that girl, except for a
relatively minor developmental delay, conducts her life out there like
everyone else and communicates and understands reality like everyone
else ... In fact, to their total astonishment, clinicians discovered
her half brain by chance, as part of standard medical checks. Now,
that girl can understand the difference between plain and metaphoric
language, became a teenager, ...
~
> JFS
>>> My question:  How do you use the speaker's intentions to control
>>> the selection of N-grams (or other patterns) to convey the meaning?
>
> AM
>> I am not sure if I get your question and/or where is it coming from,
>> but I think this very naturally happens through people's agency when
>> they communicate/"are themselves"
>
> I agree with that answer.  But what I was trying to ask is how
> can we design a computer system that takes some representation of
> meaning (semantics, pragmatics, intention, context -- or whatever
> terms you prefer for that information) and generates language that
> expresses that meaning in the style of Shakespeare or other authors.
~
 Yes, I think you could do that. As we would guess, you will need a
corpus of Shakespeare's work and the English language as was being
used in those times. Not only that, as I see it, you could even, to
some extent, infer/extrapolate how "Shakespeare" would be writing
nowadays. In that kind of corpus, as I see/fancy it, hyperlinking text
would not make any sense, because all "n-grams" (let's call it that)
would be intrinsically and very naturally hyperlinked without any
extra work
~
 By the way, has anyone gotten a copy of the article Bill Louw
mentioned? Could you please email it to me? I even tried finding him
by myself (http://phil.spbu.ru/search?)
~
 Milojković M. (2011). Semantic Prosody and Subtext as Universal,
 Collocation-Based Instrumentation for Meaning and Literary Worlds. In
 Zaharov V.P. (et al.), Труды международной конференции
 <<Корпусная лингвистика – 2011>>.
 St Petersburg: St Petersburg State University, Faculty of Philology. 47-52
~
 lbrtchx

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