[Corpora-List] Fwd: examples of the use of the terms "prototypical" or "prototypicality"

[Krishnamurthy, Ramesh]

Thanks, John - it is very useful to get Patrick's input on this topic! :)

re: 'archetype' vs 'prototype'... I have very little background in this area,
so i have merely used the wikipedia pages to get a general flavour of the
concepts:

'archetype':
[etymology: 'beginning/origin' + 'pattern, model, type']
[domains: behavior<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior>, modern psychological theory<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_psychology#Emergence_of_German_experimental_psychology>, and literary analysis]
#1 a statement, pattern of behavior, or prototype<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_theory> which other
statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy or emulate... [cf "standard,
basic, archetypal, canonical<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_%28disambiguation%29>" examples]
#2 pure forms<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms> which embody the fundamental characteristics of a thing...
#3 a collectively-inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc.,
that is universally present in individual psyches... #4 a constantly recurring
symbol or motif in literature, painting, or mythology

'prototype':
[etymology: 'first/primitive' + 'form/impression']
[domains: *semantics*<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics>, design<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design>, electronics<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics>, and software programming<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_prototyping>]
early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process
or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from... designed to test and trial
a new design to enhance precision by system analysts and users. Prototyping
serves to provide specifications for a real, working system rather than a theoretical one.

At the wikipedia page on '*semantics*', it says "Prototype theory: Another set of concepts
related to fuzziness in semantics is based on prototypes<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_theory>. The work of Eleanor Rosch<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Rosch> in
the 1970s led to a view that natural categories are not characterizable in terms of necessary
and sufficient conditions, but are graded (fuzzy at their boundaries) and inconsistent as to the
status of their constituent members. One may compare it with Jung<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jung>'s archetype<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype>, though the
concept of archetype<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype> sticks to static concept. Some post-structuralists<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralists> are against the fixed
or static meaning of the words<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words>. Derrida<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrida>, following Nietzsche<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche>, talked about slippages in fixed
meanings.Systems of categories are not objectively out there in the world but are rooted in
people's experience. These categories evolve as learned<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_theory_%28education%29> concepts of the world – meaning is
not an objective truth, but a subjective construct, learned from experience, and language
arises out of the "grounding of our conceptual systems in shared embodiment<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_philosophy> and bodily
experience".<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics#cite_note-LakoffJohnson-12> A corollary of this is that the conceptual categories (i.e. the lexicon) will not be
identical for different cultures, or indeed, for every individual in the same culture. This leads
to another debate (see the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity> or Eskimo words for snow<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow>).

So i think our use of 'prototype' in the current context shares an aspect of the 'canonical'
(ie most frequent, arrived at by empirical means) and an aspect of the 'provisional', as
categories, like language itself, are in constant flux, and are therefore not fixed?

@Phil - "My understanding of prototypes was more about the s-v-o patterns in which
the more central categories tend to appear" - i do not see why the notion of 'prototypical'
should be limited in any way, to word senses, syntactic/structural patterns, or any other
aspect of language, eg morphology, pragmatics, text, discourse, etc?

best
ramesh

-----
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 23:33:25 -0400
From: John F Sowa <sowa at bestweb.net>
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Fwd: examples of the use of the terms
        "prototypical" or "prototypicality"
To: corpora at uib.no
Cc: patrick.w.hanks at gmail.com

On 6/29/2014 3:09 AM, Kevin B. Cohen wrote:
> More from Patrick Hanks, forwarded by his permission.

Thanks for the note and the references.  I agree that Hanks' book
makes a strong case for his theory of norms and exploitations (TNE).
In particular, the following point is well taken:

Hanks, _Lexical Analysis: Norms and Exploitations_, p. 19
> At the time of writing (2010), knowledge-rich approaches to NLP have
> tended to achieve limited success, while knowledge-poor statistical
> approaches have achieved remarkable successes over the preceding two
> or three decades.  This suggests that maybe knowledge-rich approaches
> to linguistic processing have been rich in the wrong kind of knowledge,
> have been based on wrong assumptions, or have lacked reliable foundations.
> It seems likely, however, that sooner or later statistical approaches
> will hit a ceiling and the pendulum will swing back to artificial
> intelligence (AI), involving knowledge about ways in which the intricate
> networks of words in a language are used to represent the world, its
> entities, and its events.  TNE points to a possible integration of
> statistical approaches with representations of linguistic and world knowledge.

John
--------------------------

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 07:54:59 +0100
From: Phil Gooch <philgooch at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Fwd: examples of the use of the terms
        "prototypical" or "prototypicality"
To: "corpora at uib.no <corpora at uib.no> <corpora at uib.no>"
        <corpora at uib.no>

My understanding of prototypes was more about the s-v-o patterns in which
the more central categories tend to appear, e.g.

{Person} fire {Person}
{Person} fire {Weapon}

and the interesting exceptions, e.g. Eastenders speak, {Person} fire
{Building} e.g. 'Frank Butcher fired the car lot to get the insurance
money', 'Didn't he also fire the Queen Vic?'

Phil

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