Claiming to divide language into "NL" and
"ontological" parts doesn't make it so. From the
reference you gave at:
http://books.google.com/books/about/Ordered_Chaos.
html?id=veBBTN6PwU4C (01)
Continuing her discussion, the author goes on: (02)
We have discussed earlier the possibility of
naming ontological nodes as non linguistic labels,
perhaps like X3-05023-C which makes it clear that
there is NO linguistic relationship between
ontological nodes and words. But that has been an
unworkable approach as well. The authors of the
nodes assign "meaningful" names, such as "river",
and do not exhaustively characterize the node
"river" to include all the varieties of river
which we have discussed in the past. (03)
The point is that mnemonic names for ontological
nodes must necessarily be misleading at some point
in using the ontology. Blaming "erroneous
interpretations" on the NL side in order to leave
the ontological side blameless is just an exercise
in self delusion. (04)
IMHO, there is no "erroneous interpretation",
there are only diverse interpretations. There is
no way to define universally what interpretations
are "right" and which are "wrong" because not
everybody agrees with any ontology any more than
they agree with a given NL processing method. (05)
The solution to this conundrum has yet to be
found, and indeed may not even exist. (06)
-Rich (07)
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2 (08)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of doug foxvog
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2013 11:43 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Compound nouns (09)
On Tue, April 2, 2013 18:23, Simon Spero wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Barkmeyer,
Edward J <
> edward.barkmeyer@xxxxxxxx> wrote: (010)
>> There is nothing inaccurate about having the
term "pineapple tree" in
>> your ontology. (011)
The terms in an ontology are not the NL terms.
They (should) have
mappings to NL terms -- a big difference. Thus,
there is nothing wrong
in having the NL term "pineapple tree" map to a
term (or several terms)
in your ontology. (012)
The term in the ontology might mean a type of
supermarket fruit display,
a depiction of a tree carved out of a pineapple,
or a wedding table
decoration
(http://pinterest.com/emeritussl/how-to-make-a-pin
eapple-tree/
http://marietta-georgia.olx.com/pictures/pineapple
-palm-tree-tropical-fruit-display-kit-iid-10270713
3
). (013)
The definitions and assertions about the term in
the ontology should be
checked for someone looking at the ontology to
determine the meaning. (014)
>> The inaccuracy would be in saying that it is a
subtype of
>> "tree", assuming that we all agree on the
definition of "tree". The
>> assumption that the word "tree" appearing in
the term "pineapple tree"
>> implies some well-defined relationship is
unwarranted. This is the kind
>> of thing that comes from trying to guess what
is meant by looking at
>> natural language cues. Sometimes you guess
wrong! (015)
> The meaning of the phrase *pineapple tree* is
endocentric - that is to
> say, the meaning of the whole is derived from
its constituent parts. (016)
Here we move away from ontology to NL. (017)
Of course, there are various NL patterns that
could suggest what the
term may mean, given its parts. (018)
> It is is about as close to canonical an English
noun-noun compound as they
> get
> (which isn't very). (019)
Exactly. (020)
> 1. It is right headed (*tree* is the head noun,
and *pineapple* is the
> modifier).
> 2. The specialization in meaning obtained via
the modifier is the
> prototypical specialization for other modifiers
in the same general
> category (an *apple tree* is a *tree* on which
*apple*s grow; a *cherry
> tree* is a *tree * on which *cherries *grow. (021)
I note
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_tree)
there are
*strawberry tree*s which produce fruit, and
strawberries are fruit. (022)
Families certainly grow. Do they grow on *family
tree*s? (023)
> 3. If pineapples grew on trees, they would grow
on pineapple trees. (024)
So ... if pine cones grew on trees they would grow
on pine cone trees
(conifers include pines, but also other members of
the pine family
(which includes spruce and other non-pines) and
the cypress family
(including redwoods). And if acorns grew on
trees they would
grow on acorn trees!? (025)
One must generalize from "tree" to (maybe stemmed
rooted plant) to
include pineapple plants. Metaphor allows this. (026)
However, we are discussing NL techniques, not
ontological techniques
here. (027)
> There is considerable difference between
*pineapple tree* and *syntax tree
> *;
> one would not expect to be able to build a *tree
house* in the latter, nor
> to hang a *bird house* from its branches. (028)
One could not build a *tree house* in *pineapple
tree* nor hang a
*bird house* from its branches, either. (029)
> *Fake diamond *is much more complicated to
analyze. Syntactically,
> *diamond
> * is still the head, but semantically, modifier
*fake *carries with it
> the
> partial meaning that it is something that has a
very strong superficial
> resemblance to a *real diamond,* but which lacks
some critical property.
> The common super-ordinate category would
appear to be things which
> resemble diamonds.
>
> More complicated still is the case of *toys. *
A *toy dog* is a
> *toy*shaped like a *dog*, but a *toy poodle* is
a dog
> (and a *dog toy* is a *toy *for use by dogs).
>
> For more fun, consider *White tigers, Paper
tigers, Paper Airplanes*,
> and *Model
> airplanes. *
> *
> *
> For one take on just N-N compounds,
>
http://books.google.com/books/about/Ordered_Chaos.
html?id=veBBTN6PwU4C (030)
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