Metaphor for Categories

[Tony Wright]

At 01:33 PM 2/10/00 -0600, Janet Wilson wrote:

> I think there is a good metaphor for prototype categories--they are more
like > piles than like containers. Two reasons (there are more, but these
are at the > forefront of my thinking) for liking the metaphor of "piles" are:

> 1.    When a container is empty, there is still something there. When a
pile > is empty, there is nothing.

> 2.    A container imposes its shape (form) on the contents. A pile, on
the > other hand, gets its shape from the contents.

I agree!  Also, I would add that things are typically in a container or not
in a container (with some exceptions).  But things can be in or near a
pile, or in between two piles, etc.

I have often wondered how it would be if we re-cast the classical notion of
the phoneme in terms of "fuzzy regions in phonetic space."  Opinions?

--Tony Wright