Re: Fw: Intro to natural language processing
John Bateman wrote
> Please take that description of NLP that was sent around with large
> grains of salt!! It is pretty bad.
It certainly paints the worst possible color on past results. But I think
the convergence of all linguistic, philosophic and logic fields into what
will eventually become valid NLP applications just shows how much
work will be involved. That's the point I wanted to make by using that
pessimistic quote.
<snip/>
>> 2) Functionalism (focus on language as a system of contrasting
>> strings)
>
> misses the point entirely: in what sense contrasting? It
> has to be contrasting with respect to different
> functions specified in terms of the cognitive and/or
> social system: i.e., meanings construed very
> broadly. Every kind of linguistics has to do
> with contrasting strings... this is basic structure
> from the past 60 years of linguistics, nothing
> particularly generative.
I would have preferred 'a system of contrasting symbols', which
is more in line with the way I interpreted it. After resolving
syntax and references, the less ambigous symbols still aggregate
into patterns that we place meaning into. I hadn't heard the
term 'functionalism' applied to this concept before.
<snip/>
> John B.
Thanks for your comments, John.
-Rich