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WORDGRAMMAR  2005

WORDGRAMMAR 2005

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Subject:

Re: rationale for word-tyoe/word-token distinction?

From:

"Mark P. Line" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Word Grammar <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:34:07 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (63 lines)

And Rosta wrote:
>
>> So you believe that hearers believe that when Walter Wolfgang said
>> "nonsense" this week, this was just one part of the same event by which
>> Joe X. Shmuck said "nonsense", standing in a used car lot in Paducah,
>> Kentucky on May 13th, 1962?
>
> I find it completely unproblematic in principle, since it's a normal
> mode of human thought (e.g. 'crime', which occurs in different places
> at different times), but I haven't had time yet to consider whether
> (a) it's correct, (b) it's incorrect, or (c) it doesn't make any
> difference. On the whole, I currently favour (c).

I think that in everyday thought, 'crime' names a class of events, not a
single intermittent event. If so, then it should make a difference to that
extent at least.

Neuropsychologically, I'm rather confident that there is a very fast and
ubiquitous isa inheritance network (such as would hold between an event on
the ground and the class of crimes, and between subclasses of crime and
the class of crimes). I am completely unconvinced that there is a
similarly fast or ubiquitous part inheritance network, or that part-whole
properties are different in nature from other non-isa properties.


>> What does that kind of analysis buy you?
>
> My question was: What does rejecting that kind of analysis buy you,
> given that by default it should be a moderately natural way to
> conceptualize words. I've now realized that WG doesn't reject it
> (because WG has no need to take a position on it), so my question is
> withdrawn.

In any event, just as I think that 'crime' is treated most naturally as a
class of events, I think that words are treated most naturally as a class
of events.


> I see what you're saying, and EASILY is not like the Wars of the Roses
> in that it can't be pinned down to particular times and places (within
> what a single speaker knows). But EASILY is like Crime and Copulation.

I'd consider Copulation a class of events like Crime.


EASILY as in

(1) He could easily be mistaken for Prince Charles.

would be a class of (apparently arbitrary) events, but in other contexts
it could have to do with the speaker's level of confidence:

(2) That could easily be the best black pudding I've ever had.

EASILY would be a class of assertions in (2), which are themselves events.


-- Mark

Mark P. Line
Polymathix
San Antonio, TX

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