SUO: Re: Re: Monosemy, Semantics, and Natural Language
John,
A great reply about the Semiotics !
And about the third part of it (Pragmatics) too .
>Even if everybody recognizes it as saying 30
> degrees Celcius, one person may consider it warm,
> another may consider it normal running temperature
> for that particular device, and a third may have
> no idea whether 30 C is good, bad, or indifferent.
Leonid
===============================================
Leonid Ototsky - http://ototsky.mgn.ru,
Chief Specialist in IT,
Magnitogorsk Iron&Steel Works (MMK- www.mmk.ru),
Russia
===============================================
----- Original Message -----
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net>
To: "Danny Ayers" <danny666@virgilio.it>
Cc: <cg@cs.uah.edu>; <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 7:08 AM
Subject: SUO: Re: Monosemy, Semantics, and Natural Language
>
> Danny,
>
> Instead of using the terms "word" or "concept",
> I would prefer to talk more broadly about "signs".
>
> Every word or concept is a sign, but so are many
> manifestations such as smoke (which "means" fire)
> or a weather vane (which indicates the direction
> of the wind). There are an enormous number of
> different kinds of signs, and they can have
> different meanings to different interpreters.
>
> A farmer, for example, can interpret the signs
> of wind, weather, and nature with much greater
> depth and understanding than a city dweller.
>
> Or consider a lecture at a conference to a
> varied audience. Every listener has a different
> range of experience and a different way of
> interpreting the same words and sentences.
> Some may have less understanding of the subject
> matter than the speaker, and some may have a
> deeper understanding. It is highly unlikely
> that any two people in the room will have
> exactly the same interpretation in all respects.
>
> DA> For a fairly minimal case, consider a little
> > thermometer attached to a I/O card on a computer.
> > This computer is networked. Calls may come from
> > elsewhere on the network - the query "temperature?"
> > will return a value. The original (human) users of
> > the system used the Fahrenheit scale, then they
> > changed to Celsius. For them there may have been
> > meaning drift - for the machine, none. How does
> > such a system fit in the dynamic world of meaning?
>
> The sign that comes back is a token of a given type.
> That token may be interpreted in many different
> ways. >
> John
>