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From: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The symbol grounding problem: "Fuzzy" categories?
Message-ID: <245@uwslh.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Jul-87 12:31:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwslh.245
Posted: Mon Jul 13 12:31:17 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jul-87 05:44:39 EDT
References: <764@mind.UUCP> <768@mind.UUCP> <770@mind.UUCP> <6174@diamond.BBN.COM> <454@sol.ARPA> <974@mind.UUCP> <3930@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka)
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison, State Hygiene Lab
Lines: 86

In article <3930@sunybcs.UUCP> dmark@marvin.UUCP (David M. Mark) writes:
>In article <974@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>>
>>
>>In Article 185 of comp.cog-eng sher@rochester.arpa (David Sher) of U of
>>Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY responded as follows to my claim that
>>"Most of our object categories are indeed all-or-none, not graded. A penguin
>>is not a bird as a matter of degree. It's a bird, period." --
>>
>>>	Personally I have trouble imagining how to test such a claim...
>>
>>Try sampling concrete nouns in a dictionary.
>
>Well, a dictionary may not always be a good authority for this sort of
>thing.

I don't want to start a huge discussion on a related topic, but I guess I'll
throw in my two-cents worth.

Mr. Harnad states that one should try sampling concrete nouns in a
dictionary.  It seems to me that a short while ago there was some
discussion around the country as to what a dictionary's purpose
actually is, to which a prominent authority on the subject replied
that a dictionary is *only* a description of what people are commonly
using certain words for.  Now, one upshot of this seems to be that a
dictionary, in the end, is NOT a final authority on many words (if not
all of them included).  It can only provide a current description of
what the public in general is using the word for.

In the case of some words, many people will use them for many
different things.  This may be one reason for the problems with the
word 'map.'  In the case of a penguin, scientifically it is considered
a bird.  I consider it a bird, although a penguin certainly does not
fly in the air.  However, if every English-speaking person except a
few, say myself and Mr. Harnad, suddenly decided to think of a penguin
as something other than a bird, than a dictionary's description would
need to be changed, for myself and Mr. Harnad would be far outweighed.
I suspect that the dictionary would have some entry as to the
historical meaning of 'penguin' (i.e. a penguin used to be considered
a bird, but now it is something else).  However, since a dictionary is
supposed to be descriptive of a language in its current usage, the
entry for penguin would have to be modified.

Which brings me to my point.  Given that a dictionary is a descriptive
tool that seeks to give a good view of a language as it is currently being
used, can it really be used as a final authority?  My feeling is no;
just look at all the different uses of a certain word among your
friends, not to mention the entire state you live in, not to mention
your continent, not to mention the entire English-speaking population
of the world.  Holy cow!  You've suddenly got a lot of little
differences in meaning for a certain word.  Not to mention slang and
local terms (e.g. has anyone ever heard of the word 'bubbler?'  It
means a 'Water Fountain' here in Wisconsin, but you'd be surprised how
many people don't know this term).  In this case you can only look at
words as a 'graded' term, not an all-or-none term if you are using a
dictionary as the basis for a definition.  Sure, if you want to use a
scientific definition for penguin, go ahead...since science seems to
seek to be unambiguos (unlike general spoken language), then you will
have a better all-or-none description.  But I don't think you can go
about using a dictionary, which is a descriptive tool, as an
all-or-none decisive authority on what a word means.  If I remember
back to a Linguistics course I took, this is the same difference as
denotation vs. connotation.

A couple notes: if you notice above (and right here), I use the word
'you' (as a technical writer would use the word 'one') to refer to a
person in general (i.e. the reader).  This is not generally accepted
as proper English by the people who seek to define proper English, but
it is the term that is used by most people that I have known (here in
Wisconsin).  It seems to me that this is further evidence of my
argument above, because I do not think twice in using this term 'you;'
it is how I was raised.

Also, please don't start a discussion on language in this group unless
it pertains to A.I. (and in some case it does); I just felt that
someone ought to speak up on the ambiguity of words, and how to
different people there might be problems with using a dictionary as a
basis for judgement.  If you want to continue this discussion, please
e-mail me, and I will respond in a decent amount of time (after I cool
off in the case of flames ;-)


-- 
Chris Lishka                    /lishka@uwslh.uucp
Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene <-lishka%uwslh.uucp@rsch.wisc.edu
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