Bill,

Thank you for pointing us to that great article! I think we can see at once the simplicity and multiplicity of devices required to characterize the elements that go into learning a language. The conclusion from Bever, Sanz, and Townsend (1998) is quite quotable: ‘‘The relation between pattern frequencies, semantics and syntax remains the central problem of language processing. Almost any set of simplifying assumptions about how to study that integration and how it works is likely to be incomplete or wrong. The damn thing is probably much more complex than our models will allow.’’ The progress that has been made in building and implementing neural nets in this regard has be very promising. Their use to model learning is obvious, but their use in modelling knowledge is less obvious, where memory structures come strongly into play.

The following article might be relevant to the discussion (and it has mickel sciencinesse). --- Bill Spruiell

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 4:41 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: science

You may be right about such linguists taking issue with modelling techniques. I believe their position has to do with their goal of modelling the cognitive faculty. They might have a problem with constructing a mind out of a computer. Compare the construction and performance of some of the early computers with those operated today. We would say that the early designers took many "shortcuts." The differences are in complexity, basically the layering and interfacing of the various modules. The formal constructs needed for any model can be simulated by the mind, and I believe on any computer, provided it is designed with enough sophistication.

My efforts at formal languages and models have driven me to believe that any field may be described with a certain set of basic tools -- just as the basic elements of a computer (bits) have been used to model numbers and information of many kinds. Whether language is autonomous or not is irrelevant to its formal modelling. In my thinking the way a word is spelled (in English) is different from the way it is pronounced. This tells me that there are definitely two conceptual modules, otherwise, I believe, the systematic conventions of spelling would be much more in line with the systematic conventions of pronunciation. Yet, it is no accident that IPA uses letters to represent sounds.

I do not mean to diminish the cognitive approach to language. These linguists are ambitious. They have decided to back up and try again without two separate modules of syntax and semantics. The systematic conventions of word and morpheme arrangement correspond indeed to many of the systematic conventions of the conceptual patterns in the mind. For example, I have found that the modelling work by computer scientists in Europe on semantic nets parallels the syntactic structures of European languages, even though their primitive elements are quite different. I would predict that cognitive linguists will make similar models so long as they are working on the more historically related cultural complexes. I do not believe, however, that the differences between these two fields to be modelled are so harmonic that treating them as one could be advantageous. It has been a number of years for computers to adapt to human cognitive activities. However, this did not result in redoing the basic design elements and tools. It is hard for me to accept the arguments of cognitive linguists that redoing syntax as a version of semantics will increase understanding. I do not believe that syntax, as it is understood by most linguists specializing in it, will use semantic networks. The goal is noble, but to conquer most such challenges the more fruitful strategy in the past has always been to divide the problem space. My position is that the same results may well come from applying a more analytic approach to both syntax and semantics.

By the way, would you be in a position to enumerate any of the principles or laws that have been discovered, formulated, hypothesized, or refuted by corpus linguistics? Perhaps, one is that grammar can only be measured in terms of probabilities and tendencies. These are the kinds of measurements usually taken on human cognitive abilities. It is interesting that people who have lost part of their linguistic abilities, seem to have lost them in certain characteristic chunks.

--- [log in to unmask] wrote:

From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: science
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:23:04 -0500

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
>
> 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"