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Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontologies and the awful German language....

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Francis McCabe <frankmccabe@xxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:39:32 -0800
Message-id: <60EB8318-46EB-403C-8657-02BE3D7E56ED@xxxxxxx>
If you look at http://www.i18nguy.com/driver-side.html, you will note  
that driving on the left is not at all absurd, nor obscure. A  
substantial fraction of the world's population drives on the left.    (01)

Frank    (02)

On Jan 8, 2008, at 10:30 AM, Peter F Brown wrote:    (03)

> No-one captures it better than Mark Twain:
> "Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and
> systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed
> about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at
> last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to  
> take a
> rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of  
> speech, he
> turns over the page and reads, 'Let the pupil make careful note of the
> following exceptions.'"
> Dunno whether he meant German or CL, CG, IKL, RDF, though...
>
> One difference though: in many logic languages, the verb comes at the
> beginning of the sentence not the end ;-)
>
> Hey, Icelanders drive on the right (ie "correct" and !"left") side of
> the road, it's just the Irish, the Maltese, the Cypriots and, oh,
> yeah...
>
> Peter
> Brit-on-the-Mainland-of-Europe
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Duane
> Nickull
> Sent: 08 January 2008 19:18
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] CL, CG, IKL and the relationship between
> symbols in the logical "universe of discourse" and individuals in the
> "real world"
>
> Damn!  I should have suspected this from Iceland as some people are
> still
> driving on the *wrong* side of the road....
>
> ;-)
>
> I'm finding Ontology a lot like German - exceptions to exceptions to
> exceptions...
>
> /d
>
>
> On 1/8/08 9:06 AM, "Peter F Brown" <peter@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Duane:
>> It gets worse than that: the semantics of FirstNameofHuman are not
>> "neutral" either: in Iceland, for example, the first name is the
>> significant name - even the telephone directories are ordered by  
>> first
>> name; the family name is simply a sort of qualifier (daughter of...,
> son
>> of ...) but which is not considered as significant as the first name.
> I
>> remember dramas when I worked in the Council of Europe when newly
>> arrived Icelandic staff were faced with paperwork asking for their
>> family name or surname but where "Christian" name (there's a  
>> bombshell
>> in itself for some) or forename was not asked for - this was
> considered
>> as rude and indelicate as it still is for many English people to be
>> addressed by their first names by people they don't know.
>>
>>
>> So in reply to John's point of packaging a section of text, even
> widely
>> accepted packaging does not detract from the problem of adding yet
>> further context - and the problem is, however careful you are, there
>> will often be situations where the context requires something else.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Peter
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Duane
>> Nickull
>> Sent: 08 January 2008 17:49
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] CL, CG, IKL and the relationship between
>> symbols in the logical "universe of discourse" and individuals in the
>> "real world"
>>
>> John:
>>
>> As someone who mapped XML to EDI and other formats, this statement
> gave
>> us
>> lots of things to think about:
>>
>>
>> On 1/8/08 6:47 AM, "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>     * Syntax.  The syntactic function of context is to group,
>> delimit,
>>> quote, or package a section of text.
>>
>> The issue arises when one builds automatic mappers based on metadata
>> artifacts stored in a registry-repository.  Even if we sit down and
>> agree on
>> the semantics of "First Name of Human Being" as a data element and
> give
>> it a
>> metadata representation term of "FirstNameOfHuman" (type=string) and
>> constrain the instance values of a list of pre-approved names, there
> is
>> a
>> syntactic context issue at mapping.
>>
>> If it appears in Xan XML instance of a purchase order using the Xpath
>> syntax
>> in the hierarchic context of:
>>
>> //PurchaseOrder/BuyerParty/FirstNameOfHuman
>>
>> The exact same data element has slightly different semantics  
>> (strictly
>> in
>> the context of mapping to another instance of XML) if it appears in a
>> different hierarchic context of:
>>
>> //PurchaseOrder/SellerParty/FirstNameOfHuman
>>
>> As the BuyerParty vs. Seller Party hierarchic context qualifies the
> data
>> element.
>>
>> Is this the type of syntax context you refer to?
>>
>> Duane
>
> -- 
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