[Corpora-List] Bootcamp: 'Quantitative Corpus Linguistics withR'--re Louw's endorsement

[James L. Fidelholtz]

Hi, Yorick,

Grumpy (old) age or not, let me second your auto-reference (NB: *not* to
self-driving cars). I learned more about semantics from your throughly lucid
chapter than I ever did from studying mathematical logic, Montague, Carnap,
Wittgenstein or any of the others (none of which I -- admittedly -- ever
spent too much time outside of class on). A few short pages in _Electric
words_ on the various types of semantic theories (which, of course, I could
no longer reproduce), and I felt like I finally understood at least some of
what people were always saying about meaning. BTW, I also have found very
useful the book's basic approach (in my understanding, anyway) to how to do
semantics computationally -- winnow out from *all* the words *actually used*
in definitions in a medium-sized ('college') dictionary the ones that could
be left out, using synonyms and/or paraphrase, and take the resulting 2000
or so words as a basis for a semantic theory. Now *that's* an appealing
approach, especially to a formalist like me. (Of course, if I remember
correctly, you started with the COBUILD dictionary, where the compilers had
started out with a limited (?2000 word) vocabulary from which to construct
definitions. Maybe you got it down to 1990 or so  ;-)> .)

Anyway, toss in some use of realistic semantic features, perhaps based on a
thorough overview of semantic fields from the same point of view, definitely
based on metaphor as an explanation for much semantic change (again, from
the same feature-based point of view), and I could see a reasonable semantic
theory (or at least parts of it) beginning to emerge. But that's a more
extended issue.



On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 12:07 PM, Yorick Wilks <yorick at dcs.shef.ac.uk>wrote:

> Saying "computers are deterministic" really captures nothing since von-
> neumann-style machines can perfectly well have access to a
> random number generator to make choices. I do try to stay out of this
> duologue you are having (honestly!) but the endless autodidact
> philosophy of language stuff (i.e. about what/where is meaning, if
> anywhere?) does need to raise its game a bit. There are many
> straightforward tutorials on the basics of the philosophy of language:
> my own modest contribution (that does link philosophy directly to
> corpora/linguistics etc. which most tutorials dont ) is in "Electric
> Words: dictionaries, computers and meanings (MIT Press, 1996) by
> Guthrie, Slator and myself-----it's not really out of date because the
> basic issues dont change much. Sorry for the testy tone of this--put
> it down to age!
> Yorick Wilks
>
>
> On 28 Aug 2008, at 17:18, Linas Vepstas wrote:
> ... [remainder deleted out of consideration for those who don't have gmail
> or other monster capacity email.]
>
>
> --
> James L. Fidelholtz
> Posgrado en Ciencias del Lenguaje
> Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades
> Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, MÉXICO
>
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