[Corpora-List] What is corpora and what is not?

[Laurence Anthony]

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Angus Grieve-Smith <grvsmth at panix.com> wrote:

>     People successfully communicated for millenia before anyone came up with
> a definition of anything.

Angus, I think you need a definition of definition!  In plain
language, I'm using the term "definition" to mean a mutually accepted
meaning for a word. As a linguist, surely you know that people cannot
communicate without mutually accepted meanings of words?

>     You can decide whether or not to bury someone without any kind of
> definition.  You don't need the words "alive" and "dead" at all. You just
> need a clear set of criteria.  But no matter how clear you make the criteria
> there will always be hard-to-decide borderline cases where people just need
> to use their best judgment.
>

Very true. But, isn't a "clear set of criteria" a synonym for definition?

Laurence.

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