Re: CHAT: Re : Re: Tlvn, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 15/09/99 05:09:26  , Ed a =E9crit :

> "Allnoun" by Tom Breton isn't really all noun and doesn't claim to
>  be; it's all nouns and *punctuation marks*, which are extremely
>  important to the way it works.  Also, every sentence carries an
>  implicit verb: "X exists" where X is the rest of the sentence.
> =20
french grammarians (out of fashion now) consider such "X exists" as
a range of (5 - i think) descriptive or communicative
relations between an "entit=E9" and a "comportement"
(pr=E9sentatif, existentiel, etc.)
the 6th being the relation of "sch=E8me g=E9n=E9ral d'entendement"
pairing a "th=E8me" and a "propos" (not yet a topic and a comment,
or a predicate and an argument).
that relation may be attributive (dependence) or active (actance)
(i guess it's pretty much =E0 la chomsky ?)
no verb or noun morphem and no syntax is needed to understand
that relation. some say such relation is countlessfold given the number
of semantic relations between concepts. others say you can count
them down - not as such, but as lexies capturing both entity and
comportement. others try to chase them down by listing all the different
aspects for all possible kinds of actors of all possible kinds of processes
and states because another theory over here (can't say
about elsewhere) has it that when the dog barks it's not a dog anymore,
only the "-s" on "barks" (my free translation) nomore differently than=20
"bark-er" or "bark-ing" are. so you can categorize
entities according to their possible comportements - syntax being only
taken *in that regard* as a clue to another relation.
this implies that entit=E9s exist through their possible comportements
and conversely so you can map these matches.
i think that's what wordnet does actually.
i told you already french lingo-computer guys in grenoble and nancy
believe they can do that - like you make ariane or tgv or whatever
according to state planification.

it looks like Tom Breton flatly puts the lid on the pan and calls all that "=20
: "
;-)

----------
I'm not familiar with "integration process," but it sounds like
something I might want to know about.  Can you explain it to me?  (And
remember, I can be a little slow sometimes.)
----------
oh yeah, we all noticed that ;-)

---------
Not knowing about it, I would assume that turning nouns into verbs is
a blending process.  By putting the word "man" into a syntactic slot
which demands a verb, one essentially asks the hearer to create a new
verb, a transitive one, which has as a salient feature the referent of
the noun "man" -- a man -- and which could plausibly take as a direct
object the d.o. of the sentence -- the ship.  One draws upon context
(encyclopedic knowledge: ships need crews to run them) and comes up
with "to provide with a crew" or "to be a crew for."
----------
exactly. int=E9gration is creating a lexie (lexicalized concept)
by putting comportement or entit=E9 in dependence.
word "man" is a clue for detecting
a comportement #xxx or entit=E9 #yyy within syntax.
but the word "man" also happens to express a lexie
(entit=E9+comportement) with listed actors : ship, crew
+ possible factive agent. you can use "man for", "to be crew", etc.
that doesn't change anything but i guess it's good to list that too
so you can identify it better at the syntax level.
very dumb, isn't it ?
---------------
Is that more or less what you're talking about, or is it something
different?
--------------
sorry ? what are we talking about anyway ? ;-)

-------------
It could be that Charles Sanders Pierce was right after all, and
there are three ultimate categories of experience: Firstness,
Secondness, and Thirdness, and that any relation involving more than
three participants is reducible to relations among three participants,
but that trinary relations are not reducible.
--------------
well, i don't know that guy but there is a theory used here
to explain that since ages.
very roughly speaking some comportements
imply another comportement from another entit=E9.
for instance, "i punish him" implies he did something
wrong, "i talk to him" implies he can listen,
"i protect him" implies something else may threaten him, etc.
the relation between two comportements is called continuum and
is prospective (from identified comportement) as opposed to
retrospective (from identified entit=E9) which is a rupture.

for instance
"to tell the kids the story" :
kids =3D prospective understanding (hopefully)
+ story =3D retrospective pattern
wordnet calls pattern a "3rd entity".

same with so-called factive :
"to teach script to children" :
chidren =3D prospective learning
+ script =3D retrospective pattern

that's how serial verbs work.
(nothing to do with transitive or factitive).


---------------
A THING profiles a region within a conceptual domain.  The most
prototypical nouns -- physical objects -- are primarily understood as
regions within the domain of three-dimensional space, but any
conceptual material can serve.  Regions with definite boundaries are
count nouns; regions without definite boundaries are mass nouns.

Nouns symbolize things.
----------
we call that "permanence".

---------
An ATEMPORAL RELATION is similar in some ways to a THING; the region
that is a THING consists of a group of interconnected entities, where
an entity is absolutely anything that can be consciously or
unconsciously conceptualized.  In a THING, the entity or entities are
profiled, whereas in an ATEMPORAL RELATION the interconnections
themselves are profiled.  This is why a "group" is a THING but
"together" is an ATEMPORAL RELATION.  The same content, construed in
different ways, here becomes a THING or a RELATION.

Adjectives symbolize atemporal relations.
----------
we call that "immanence".
immanence is thought as revealing entity (permanence) through
comportement (remanence) or else as shaping comportement
(remanence) into entity (permanence).
reality is only another viewpoint ;-)
--------
A PROCESS is like an atemporal relation, in that relationships are
profiled, but it is processed differently than an atemporal relation:
it is SEQUENTIALLY SCANNED rather than SUMMARILY SCANNED.  This is one
of Langacker's bolder proposals: he suggests that "the jumping monkey"
and "the monkey jumps" are actually processed differently by the mind;
in the former, the act of jumping is considered as a whole, while in
the latter, the act of jumping is considered in its temporal parts,
start to finish, in order.  (This does not necessarily imply that this
is conscious, or that it involves a vivid, movie-like mental picture.)
 Incidentally, Langacker distinguishes two types of process, which he
calls "perfective" and "imperfective," which are similar to but not
identical with the concept of "active" and "stative."  Perfective
processes, like count nouns, are structured, individualized, and
distinguishable, while imperfective processes, like mass nouns, are
indefinitely divisible without loss of structure.

Verbs symbolize processes.
----------
it's called "remanence" over here.

----------
That's the gutted, ripped-from-context,
----------
i like it, takes us back to philosophy courses
(never had the opportunity to get back to them since baccalaur=E9at)

---------- and christophe wrote
For me, it is obvious that syntax and semantics aren't autonomous, and
I wonder why it is a debated question. Even in a language where word
order is free enough (a purely syntactic feature), using a word order
instead of another generally convey a different meaning (a semantic
feature). Syntax is only the mean used to carry a meaning. I can't
understand why it could be seperated from semantics (even if the same
syntactic feature can carry many different meanings).
--------
not at all.
let's take everything from the beginning and prove to the
unquestionable contrary. only then we know we're right.

mathias