John & Craig,
	I have not been tracking this entire conversation, but it seems I  
have dipped into it at the right point.  I am interested in how  
people have empirically tested the presence of abstractions as a  
phenomena in our world.  Could you say more?
	I am glad to see this conversation is going somewhere exciting,
	Gregg


On Dec 13, 2010, at 8:38 AM, John Chorazy wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Craig Hancock
> "I agree that "person, place, or thing" is harmfully simplistic. Do  
> you
> simply ignore semantic definition or do you work on a more
> nuanced one? If we grant something the status of "thing" is there a  
> cognitive dimension to that?"
>
> Being somewhat elusive, abstract nouns have never been very popular  
> as objects of linguistic research. English Abstract Nouns as  
> Conceptual Shells fills this long-standing gap in English and general
> linguistics. Based on a systematic analysis of a very large corpus,
> it introduces a conceptual and terminological framework for the
> linguistic description of abstract nouns [...] Semantic, pragmatic,  
> rhetorical, textual and cognitive functions of abstract nouns are  
> discussed, always with reference to the empirical observation and  
> statistical analysis of the corpus data. In this way, a link  
> between the corpus method and functional and cognitive theories of  
> language is
> established. Caglayan annotated bibliography on Schmid, H.J  
> "English Abstract Nouns as Conceptual Shells" (2000).
>
> Craig - my students are pretty used to defining a noun as not a  
> name of something, but a sign or symbol of the thing itself.  
> "Craig" is a name and label used as an identifier, but Craig the  
> person is the noun. So I suppose that "proper" nouns are classified  
> as those names of the people they label. Students also know that  
> "love," albeit an abstraction, is identifiable as a noun too...  
> they recognize its empirically tested presence as a phenomena in  
> our world (your cognitive dimension mentioned above). I'm surprised  
> that the definitions of nouns mentioned so far haven't included  
> this discussion, but based on Schmid I guess this is an elusive  
> concept for some reason?
>
> Hope you are all doing well.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
> John Chorazy
> English III Academy, Honors, and Academic
> Pequannock Township High School
>
> Nulla dies sine linea.
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web  
> interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and  
> select "Join or leave the list"
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/