[Corpora-List] ad-hoc generalization and meaning

[Rob Freeman]

On 9/13/07, maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu <maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu> wrote:
>
> Rob Freeman wrote:
> > As an example, consider the verb *support* in the following sentences:
> >
> > Tom supported the tomato plant with a stick.
> > Tom supported his daughter with $10,000 per year.
> > Tom supported his father with a decisive argument.
> > Tom supported his partner with a bid of 3 spades.
> >
> > These sentences all use the verb *support* in the same syntactic
> pattern:
> >
> > A person supported NP1 with NP2.
> >
> > Yet each use of the verb can only be understood with respect to a
> > particular subject matter or domain of discourse..."
> >
> > Well, I'm saying their syntax can only be understood with respect to
> > context too. Each context will select a different "grammar".
>
> Hmm...  In one sentence you acknowledge that all four use the same
> syntactic pattern; in another you that each context selects a different
> "grammar."


Sorry, Mike, I guess I didn't make it clear I was quoting John here. You can
see the quote marks if you look carefully. I've been discussing this
treatment of Wittgenstein by John since my 3rd(?) message in this thread.
Here is the link again:

http://www.jfsowa.com/ontology/lex1.htm

It is of course John who claims the syntax of his examples is captured by:

"A person supported NP1 with NP2"

I think the syntax of "supported" in each context will be different. A
different "grammar" will be found for it depending on context. For instance,
"supported" will be in a class with one set of words in "daughter" contexts
(e.g. "accompanied"), and in classes with other words in "tomato" contexts,
etc.

Failure to treat the syntax of "supported" on an ad-hoc basis in this way
means you have no way of capturing the information that, in a grammar of
English, "supported" = "accompanied" but also "supported" != "accompanied".
That means you will be unable to capture detailed syntactic restrictions
which prevent you from saying "slightly odd" things like "Tom accompanied
his tomato plant to the garden (where he planted it.)"

John would claim such restrictions are purely semantic, but in point of fact
you can capture them with an ad-hoc search for syntactic regularities along
the lines I recommend. Since a semantic representation is currently moot,
but a syntactic representation is easily to hand (the corpus) I don't know
why his is resisting this.

-Rob
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