[Corpora-List] ad-hoc generalization and meaning

[Rob Freeman]

On 9/14/07, Paula Newman <paulan at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>  ...  So the question, Rob, is what are you proposing?  Is it a new
> approach to linguistic investigation, or to NLP, or to ??
>

A better understanding of syntax and semantics.

That's the glib answer, Paula, but really, does the study of language have
to be divided up in the ways you describe?

Your comments conjure in me a rather odd picture of science where we assume
everything which can be known, is already know, and it only remains to
select what we want to do with that knowledge.

It somehow reminds me of the reputed comment of some Chinese emperor or
other who when presented with a collection of Western clocks and
navigational instruments, sent them back saying "We don't need such things
in China."

Is science now not to be the study of the world, but only the selection of
purposes?

Yes, there are a plethora of little "schools" out there all doing their own
thing. But I don't think an analysis of reasons for studying language gives
us a exhaustive guide to the possibilities for understanding language.
People don't analyze language statistically or symbolically just because
their goals are different.

Anyway, that is the philosophy of science. I hope that's not an area where
we need to do a lot of work.

By the way, as I remember, the words "informal grammar" were John Sowa's. I
don't think I've ever used them. I did think of asking him to define it, but
he later back-tracked from his extreme rejection of formal analysis, so
there was no need.

I think the idea of "informal grammar" is a muddle too. I don't think
grammar is "informal", I think it is "necessarily incomplete".

I found a nice definition for "incomplete" by the way.

A Remark Concerning Decidability of Complete Theories, Antoni Janiczak, The
Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1950), pp. 277-279:

"A formalized theory is called complete if for each sentence expressible in
this theory either the sentence itself or its negation is provable."

-Rob
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