Gregg, Craig - This seems as much a philosophical discussion as a linguistic, and one I'm curious about as well (and one I'm only moderately armed to engage in). I suppose it goes back as far as Locke, Schopenhauer, Kant, etc., and whether or not abstractions arise from a priori or a posteriori concepts.
But linguists should have a better handle on this argument than I; and I'm wondering about the suggestion that linguistic acts share something with mental states, so semantic properties of expressions are inherited from the intentional mental states they are conventionally used to express, ala Schiffer, and the readings of Fodor and also Pinker's Mentalese and the language of thought. I suppose that this also suggests that what are deemed abstractions are generated by what is demonstrated and observed (or felt) in the natural world.
I was blown away by Wittengestein as an undergrad and still try to make my way through some of the Tractatus on lazy summer days... his proposition that "thought" is the logical picture of facts, in my mind, is somehow tied into the noun - something with a state of being, something with a condition of existence, the "ness" that makes the adjective feeling of being happy into the concept or noun condition of happiness. As a poet, I know that this logical picture is often represented by metaphor - certainly, emotions "recalled in tranquility" are found again in the specific, abstract, and magical language of verse. And it is there that the they are made real.
While Hartmann and Stork (1972) suggest that "an abstract noun is a noun that denotes something viewed as a nonmaterial referent," often treated as a mass noun, unable to take a plural form, I've never seen "salad" as an abstraction... just like love, joy, sorrow, hope, and faith too are tangible by their mental representations and their manifestations in the human condition.
Sincerely,
John
----- Original Message -----
From: Gregg Heacock
Date: Monday, December 13, 2010 1:06 pm
Subject: Re: science
To: [log in to unmask]
> 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
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> >
>
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>
John Chorazy
English III Academy, Honors, and Academic
Pequannock Township High School
Nulla dies sine linea.
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