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SUO: Rx For Di-Mensia?


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John F. Sowa wrote:
> 
> Pat,
> 
> I agree you have correctly described what linguists who
> have been influenced by Chomsky have been trying to do.
> I also admit that computational linguists do have to
> spend an enormous amount of effort in trying to deal
> with the nitty gritty details, no matter what school
> of linguistics they subscribe to.
> 
> > You miss the point.  Of course things can be said in English.
> > But linguistics is concerned with the *structure* of English
> > (or NL generally), and many things that can be said IN English
> > need a lot of saying, and are not directly revealed in syntactic
> > structure.  And those tend to be ignored, or worse, warped, by
> > a linguistic approach to understanding meaning.
> 
> However, I have been trying to do things right.
> And Nicola correctly observes that I am therefore
> outside the mainstream.  What I am trying to do is
> to divert the stream in the direction of CSP, ANW,
> LW, and their partisans.  I admit that it is
> an uphill battle.
> 
> John

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John,

I sympathize with the artful casuistry of your labors
to rationalize the works of Peirce to the R^2 Logicians,
but until any one among them spontaneously chooses to leave
those levels of plane thinking to which they are determined
to remain accostumed, I am afraid that it is an exercise in
utter futility, though, Heaven knows, some forms of exorcise
are good for the soul, not to mention upbuilding of character.
But the fact that you have fallen to accommodating the blinkers
of those with moats around their eyes, a prescription if ever
there was one for becoming senseless in all five or six of
our human dimensions, I take that as a very ominous sign,
and I fear for the health of your psyche, if not mine.
And I would not jest about a matter like this.

With all due concern,
Sincerely yours,

Jon Awbrey

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