Gary, Rich, David, and Melvin, (01)
GBC
> Still would we agree that "definitional" ideas term/wordsenses as
> assembled in dictionaries, glossaries and the like are useful places
> to look when trying to develop ontologies? (02)
Yes. The point that Sue & Adam were making is that those definitions
are abstractions from the way people use language. Sue devoted her
entire career to writing, editing, and analyzing such definitions.
She definitely considers them useful, and so do I. (03)
But Sue, Adam, Wittgenstein, and I do not believe that you can reliably
assign a predefined "word sense" to each and every word that is found
in any particular document. (04)
On the other hand, those definitions are valuable starting points
for anybody who is going to specify an ontology for a controlled NL.
They are also useful starting points for analyzing a document, either
by a well-informed human or by a suitably designed computer. (05)
The main caveat, however, is that you shouldn't expect any finite
set of predefined definitions to be adequate for specifying all
the "word senses" of any arbitrary text. (06)
RC
> It would seem to be a reasonable conclusion that ontologies are
> personal systems of what each individual believes exists. (07)
Different people will interpret the same text in different ways.
But the author who wrote or spoke the text did have something in mind
at the moment of writing or speaking it. Some readers or listeners
will have a better or worse interpretation of what the author meant. (08)
DE
> Language is a moving target. (09)
Yes. That's a good summary. But it's important to recognize
how language moves, why it moves, and what we can do to derive
an interpretation that is adequate for our purpose. (010)
MC, quoting James Joyce
> And perhaps it is madness to grind up words in order to extract
> their substance... and to attach them to the feelers of expressions
> which grope for definitions of the undefined. (011)
I wouldn't say that it's complete madness. It's better to say that
those definitions are useful starting points, not absolute truth. (012)
For the final word, (013)
Nora Barnacle, wife of Mr. Joyce
> James, why don't you write books people can read? (014)
John (015)
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