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/