Possessives

[Patrick C. Ryan]

From: Patrick C. Ryan <proto-language at email.msn.com>
Date: Saturday, October 30, 1999 2:09 PM

Dear Sean and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Sean Crist <kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 1:29 AM

> On Sat, 16 Oct 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

<snip>

[SC]

> Virtually all syntactic analysis over the last 40 years has defined word
> categories in terms of the distribution of words within sentences- what
> you have called the 'slot' approach.  It's quite true that one can at
> least imagine other approaches, such as one where word categories are
> defined in terms of word semantics rather than word distribution. I might
> say, tho, that we rejected that approach many decades ago for the simple
> reason that it doesn't work as well, as Larry Trask has aptly illustrated.

> If you feel otherwise, then show us a model of language such as English
> which does a more accurate job of assigning strings of English words to
> the 'accept' and 'reject' bins than the best distributional model to date.
> If you can do so, we'll be glad to accept your model.

[PR]

Thank you for affording me the opportunity to explain my views in this forum.

Now, I would say that Larry would be the best choice to explain why a
semantic approach "doesn't work as well" but since I have repeatedly asked,
and in my opinion have not gotten a responsive answer to the question of
'why the "slot-and-filler" approach (Larry's terminology) be characterized
as working better', perhaps you will jump in to explain with specifics not
with generalities why you also hold this view.

If you do not care to do that, could you furnish me with the statements of
Larry that you consider to have "aptly illustrated" this point of view?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com
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