Dick, (01)
RHM> Am I the only one in this forum who believes that,
> in the appropriate context, it is possible to state
> a good genus-differentia definition in English? (02)
It is possible to write precise statements in English or
any other natural language. However, it is extremely
difficult to do so. (03)
It is much easier to be precise in an artificial language
because the range of possible interpretations is deliberately
constrained to be much, much smaller. (04)
For a good discussion of the complexity of natural languages,
I recommend the following article by a linguist who has
spent many years studying the issues of trying to define
words precisely: (05)
http://www.kilgarriff.co.uk/Publications/1997-K-CHum-believe.pdf
"I don't believe in word senses," by Adam Kilgarriff (06)
For other publications by Adam K, see (07)
http://www.kilgarriff.co.uk/publications.htm (08)
These many thorny issues about word meanings in natural languages
are among the many reasons why we recommend versions of logic
for defining ontology. (09)
John (010)
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