Indeed, grammar facilitates the instrumental use of 'modes' of concepts. Besides adjectival and nominal forms of the same concept, you also can have deverbal nouns and denominal verbs. Which form you use depends on what you want to express, what the center of attention is and thus what becomes the subject of the sentence. Do you want to stress that Pete runs or do you want to say something about the running of Pete.
On Wednesday, February 12, 2014, doug foxvog <doug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, February 12, 2014 13:21, John McClure wrote:
> I wouldn't say a female (an adjective) is a person (noun).
The word "female" is both an adjective and a noun.
Female people (persons) are people/persons.
Female plants, female non-human animals, and female organism parts are
not people/persons.
> Neither female nor male is a subtype of person.
> I argue there are obvious guidelines relating grammatical stuff to
> ontology stuff.
> For instance, adjective-things are never subtypes of noun-things.
Ontologies don't need to deal with words and parts of speech.
The concept of adjective-things and noun-things is not useful
in general for ontologies. The ways a language uses terms for
various concepts can be informative, of course.
-- doug f
> On 2/12/2014 5:28 AM, Matthew West wrote:
>> 2. "A female is a person". This is a subtype relation, and should more
>> fully
>> be stated "Each female is also a person", or "female is a subtype of
>> person".
>
> On 2/12/2014 5:28 AM, Matthew West wrote:
>> Dear Patrick,
>>
>> Up to now I have assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that a "time slice" of
>> something refers to a time slice of an individual.
>> [MW>] That is correct.
>> But "man" and "boy"
>> are classes, not individuals, and I need clarification from the experts
>> as
>> to whether a "time slice" can really be a class? In what formalism is
>> that
>> not possible?
>> [MW>] Well individual is also a class, man and boy are just classes
>> whose
>> members are timeslices of some person.
>>
>> If an ontology is to be used in Natural Language Processing (a critical
>> application, IMHO), then it should diverge from linguistic usage only
>> where
>> necessary. I agree that language has some aspects that do not translate
>> well into the logical format of ontologies, but the subclass relation of
>> "boy" to "person" seems very well established in ordinary usage, and if
>> any
>> ontology formalism cannot represent that relation, I do not see much of
>> a
>> future for that formalism.
>> [MW>] We say that a man is a person, but this is very ambiguous. There
>> are
>> at least three interpretations of "is a" and we usually leave the
>> distinguishing pieces out:
>>
>> 1. "Matthew is a person". This is a classification relation, and should
>> more
>> fully be stated "Matthew is an instance of person."
>> 2. "A female is a person". This is a subtype relation, and should more
>> fully
>> be stated "Each female is also a person", or "female is a subtype of
>> person".
>> 3. "A boy is a person". This is a temporal part relation and should more
>> fully be stated "Each boy is a state (or stage, or part of the life) of
>> a
>> person".
>>
>> One of the problems with language is that we leave out as much context
>> as we
>> think we can get away with, and sometimes find we have left out too
>> much.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Matthew West
>> Information Junction
>> Mobile: +44 750 3385279
>> Skype: dr.matthew.west
>> matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
>> https://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
>> This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in
>> England
>> and Wales No. 6632177.
>> Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City,
>> Hertfordshire,
>> SG6 2SU.
>>
>>
>>
>> Pat
>>
>> Patrick Cassidy
>> MICRA Inc.
>> cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
>> 1-908-561-3416
>>
>>
>> >-----Original Message-----
>> >From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>>> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of doug foxvog
>> >Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 4:49 PM
>> >To: [ontolog-forum]
>> >Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Person, Boy, Man > >On Tue, February
>> 11,
>> 2014 15:13, Ali H wrote:
>> >> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 2:48 PM, John McClure >>
>> <jmcclure@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>> >
>> >>> Take a
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (01)
|