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From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Categorization: Lakoff's mistake.
Message-ID: <2897@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 29 Dec 88 18:34:16 GMT
References: <671@cogsci.ucsd.EDU>
Organization: University of Hawaii
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From article <671@cogsci.ucsd.EDU>, by zhang@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jiajie Zhang):
"[paraphrasing G. Lakoff] 
"     (a) Formal-system view of language assumes that (i) language is
"         independent of the rest of cognition, that is, language is a separate
"         modular system independent of the rest of cognition, and (ii)
"         categories are classical (that is, can be characterized by distinctive
"         features so that formal operations can be possible).

Isn't this a straw man (or men)?  What do formal systems have to do with
modules?  Take, for instance, Montague grammar.  Where is there any
assumption made about language being a module separate from the rest of
cognition?  (Answer: nowhere.)  Where are categories assumed to be
classical?  (Nowhere.)  What do distinctive features have to do with the
possibility of formal operations?  (Nothing.)

This stuff is just an unwarranted slander against formalism.

Even a modularist would not take language to be *independent* of the
rest of cognition -- rather a system with some *principles* that are
independent.

		Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu