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<p class="MsoPlainText">“I think if you harness syntax really tight in a totally exaustive way<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">(think of keeping all possible n-grams of all texts) "semantics"<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">becomes some sort of illusion (how functional|irrelevant illusion it<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">be, remains to be seen)” Albretch Mueller <lbrtchx@gmail.com><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">1. This reminded me of a quote from Bloomfield I used in my lectures:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">“The study of language can be conducted without special assumptions so long as we
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">pay no attention to the meaning of what is spoken.” (Bloomfield 1933:75)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">2. Which led me to these quotes, in the same lectures:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">“Indeed, the main aim of descriptive linguistics is to make statements of
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">meaning”(Firth 1957:190)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">‘For Halliday the important thing about language is the capacity to mean.’
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">(Willis 2003:16) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ramesh Krishnamurthy<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Visiting Academic Fellow, School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Room: NX01. Tel: 0121-204-3812. <br>
Director, ACORN (Aston Corpus Network project): <a href="http://acorn.aston.ac.uk/">
<span style="color:blue">http://acorn.aston.ac.uk/</span></a> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Project Investigator, GeWiss (Volkswagen Foundation) project:
<a href="http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lss/research/research-projects/gewiss-spoken-academic-discourse/">
<span style="color:blue">http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lss/research/research-projects/gewiss-spoken-academic-discourse/</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">--------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:20:10 +0000<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">From: Albretch Mueller <lbrtchx@gmail.com><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] PS:minimal changes in a paragraph (based<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"> on a corpus it appeared) ... (2nd attempt (after first one was<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"> deleted))<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">To: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Cc: corpora@uib.no<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> How do you combine the statistical methods with the semantics?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">~<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">I think if you harness syntax really tight in a totally exaustive way<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">(think of keeping all possible n-grams of all texts) "semantics"<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">becomes some sort of illusion (how functional|irrelevant illusion it<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">be, remains to be seen)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">~<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">lbrtchx<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">On 8/9/11, John F. Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> On 8/9/2011 12:48 AM, Bill Louw wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>> the method I proposed works in other languages.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> Which method is that?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>> Structural issues of argument are likely to be universal,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>> as the article listed below demonstrates.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>> Milojkovic M. (2011). Semantic Prosody and Subtext as Universal,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>> Collocation-Based Instrumentation for Meaning and Literary Worlds. In<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>> Zaharov V.P. (et al.), ????? ????????????? ??????????? <<?????????<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>> ??????????? - 2011>>. St Petersburg: St Petersburg State University,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">>> Faculty of Philology. 47-52<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> This doesn't seem to be available on the WWW. Where can it (or<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> something similar) be found.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> And by the way, the primary requirement for language generation is<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> to make a meaningful response. How do you combine the statistical<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> methods with the semantics?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">> John<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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