FERENC KOVACS wrote:
> Each "content" word may be emphasized, gramamr words cannot,
> they will not change the meaning that way. they are like nuts and bolts, So
> it is the FOCUS that will vary meaning. (01)
When it comes to interpersonal communication, a great many things
contribute to the communication. Vocal emphasis is important when the
interface is auditory, but facial expressions, gesture and body language
also contribute when the interface is both auditory and visual. Word
ordering and turn of phrase are important, and skilled speakers and
writers know how to use the grammar of the language to advantage in that
area. Context -- the situation, the roles of the participants, the
stream of discussion -- is also important. And all of these things
depend to some extent on the culture of the participants, which provides
cues for the interpretation of emphasis and physical gesture and
grammatical arrangements and word choices. (02)
Ferenc's further point is that a statement taken out of context and
devoid of communications cues is often highly ambiguous or utterly
meaningless. And I fully agree with that. (03)
> You need to know where the fpcus is in a statement.
> (04)
And much more. (05)
> But normally, our focus is very limited and missing in writing. (06)
That is simply not true. Some communications devices are unavailable in
writing; others are unavailable on radio. In each case, the skilled
communicator knows how to manipulate the medium to convey his/her intent
effectively. Deaf and blind people can be remarkably astute in
interpreting all of the communication elements that are accessible to
them. And conversely, some fully functional individuals can be dense as
a log in interpreting the entirety of a communications experience.
("She had a place in his life. He never made her think twice. ...
Anybody else would surely know, but the fool believes.") Communication
is a social process. (07)
The underlying concern here is that all of the social communications
cues are utterly absent in a formal ontology. It means exactly what it
says and only what it says. That is a particularly difficult medium.
Each statement alone is likely to be unintelligible, and is meaningful
only in a fully developed formal context that is a cohesive corpus of
statements. An effective ontology is such a corpus -- it is only
through the body of statements, and supporting natural language
documentation, that the individual statements acquire clear meaning.
Conversely, it is the semantics of the formal language that makes the
(limited) meaning of a statement clear, and avoids unintended overloads
and cues that may be present in natural language text. It is a
different kind of communication, and it is typically intended for a
different kind of receiver. (08)
That said, ontologies are made from viewpoints and model only the
classes and relationships that are relevant to those viewpoints as
perceived by the knowledge engineer(s) involved. So "social prejudices"
in the engineer(s), whether advertent or latent, may influence the
content of an ontology. They just don't influence the means of
communication. (09)
> Old
> grammarians believe that words are in the centre of semantic analysis, but
> they are not. (010)
Words are the traditional center of semantic analysis of pure linguistic
utterances, but the closest we can come to "pure linguistic utterances"
is a written text corpus. All such analytical techniques rely on a a
notion of context that at least relates the utterances to a set of
statements that is a corpus, and typically to a reference dictionary
and/or thesaurus. Some more recent work takes into account the impact
of grammatical choices as a means of placing emphasis or steering
interpretation. Other work takes into account the presumed background
knowledge of the receivers. That said, I think words are still central
to the analysis; the issue is how one determines what exactly was the
intent of a use of a word. (011)
> they also believe that there are such things as abstract nouns
> and conrete nouns, which is not correct either.
> (012)
I have no reason to accept this statement, and I can't imagine that any
amount of understanding its Focus would change that, but I have never
been much interested in metaphysical discussions. (013)
> Identity is Not objective and fixed and a law. Do you want me to elabrate on
> that?
> (014)
Does it have something to do with the topic? (015)
> There is an abstract- concrete and generic-specific continuum which is the
> reflection of one's knowledge or learnedness. Do you want me to go into the
> details of that?
> (016)
Not unless it is relevant to the issue at hand. I must say it is no
longer clear to me what the issue at hand is. (017)
The "social mediation" idea seems to be about the forced loss of the
extralinguistic communications cues in a formal ontology. But that only
means that the discipline for effective communication via the formal
language is different from the disciplines of public speaking or
expository writing in natural language. The social prejudices of the
knowledge engineers, based on culture, education, experience, etc., may
still enter in to the content of the ontology. (018)
But I may be entirely wrong about the intended topic of discussion. (019)
> Shall we change the subject line?
> (020)
No. We should rather agree on the subject that goes with the subject
line, and strive to communicate effectively on that topic. (021)
-Ed (022)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 (023)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (024)
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