[Corpora-List] Primitives, semantic and otherwise

[John F. Sowa]

On 1/18/2011 7:13 PM, amsler at cs.utexas.edu wrote:
> But it all feels like alchemy to me right now.

I agree.

One of my favorite compound nouns is 'steamer duck'.

Unlike steamer clams, a steamer duck is not cooked in steam.
Instead, it flaps its wings like a paddle-wheel steamer when
taking off.

I believe that the major difference between words and molecules
is that quantum mechanics causes a discrete number of combinations
to be stable.  But the stability of words is determined only by
habitual practice -- and habits drift over time.  Some words
like 'car' or 'voiture' drift because of changes in technology.

Number words are very stable, because any misunderstanding
can cause a tangible loss.  Terms for the nuclear family
are stable because of human biology, but more distant
relational terms change with customs.

The human body shape is universal, but there are continuous
ranges, which can be cut in different ways.  The Russian 'ruka',
for example, includes the hand and forearm.

And speaking of hands, the first major bilingual corpus to be
studied was from the Canadian Parliament.  There were many
occurrences of 'hand' or 'main', but not a single use of the
term to refer to an actual body part.

I doubt that a transition from alchemy to chemistry will occur.
But that doesn't mean the subject isn't worth studying.  I agree
with Graeme Hirst:  Wittgenstein had the answer to the all these
issues, but he was vague about the implementation.

The CLRU founders (which included Margaret Masterman and Michael
Halliday, among others) started with a strong dose of Wittgenstein,
and I believe that their path was much more promising than either
Chomsky's or Montague's.

John

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