Bruce,
     I believe most cognitive and functional linguists would take issue 
with the idea of syntax  as an autonomous formal system. They also tend 
to take issue with a strict modular approach to language. Croft and 
Cruse (Cognitive Linguistics, 2005) list three basic hypotheses of the 
cognitive approach.
      "Language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty. Grammar is 
conceptualization. Knowledge of language emerges from language use."
     I think it's important to note that this is not a retreat from 
science, but an attempt (claim) at a more accurate science.
     One of the reasons for attractiveness of corpus grammars is that 
they measure/explore language in use. It's a more empirical approach, 
and it yields some surprising insights. But I would challenge the notion 
that it's not science.

Craig



On 12/14/2010 7:09 AM, Bruce Despain wrote:
>
>  John,
>
>  The substitution of the words "sign" and "symbol" for the word "name"
>  does not in my mind succeed in adding to our understanding of
>  grammar, except with the following caveat. There are modules in a
>  formal grammar that comprise various approaches to language:
>  orthography, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics. Any one of
>  these dimensions of investigation may be full of signs and symbols of
>  their components.
>
>  When we are speaking of the noun, we are talking about the word
>  (lexeme) in its linguistic or structural context. The sign or symbol
>  stands for a concept in the real world. These are terms appropriate
>  for a philosophical or mathematical discussion. Indeed, you will
>  find that the scientific approach to language in its constuction of a
>  formal model cannot do so without such entities. In a formal grammar
>  the word noun will serve as a label for the sign or symbol that
>  stands for the lexeme. But only in semantics do they stand for the
>  concepts that the symbol represents. In some languages the "noun" is
>  not the kind of part of speech that it is in English. The use of the
>  the terms of sign and symbol for syntax may easliy blurs the useful
>  distinction that can be made between the multiple dimensions of
>  linguistic investigation. Schmid's work is in semantics and its
>  interface with syntax. The idea of a conceptual shell is one of the
>  constructs proposed in that module. It is a sign or symbol of the
>  mathematical model. But as a word in the title of his work, it is a
>  (compound) noun.
>
>  Bruce
>
>  --- [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>  From: John Chorazy <[log in to unmask]> To:
>  [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: science Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010
>  16:38:34 +0000
>
>  ----- 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
>
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