Xref: utzoo comp.ai:2989 talk.philosophy.misc:1771 sci.lang:3781
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!rutgers!ucsd!cogsci!zhang
From: zhang@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jiajie Zhang)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Categorization: Lakoff's mistake.
Message-ID: <674@cogsci.ucsd.EDU>
Date: 2 Jan 89 04:02:58 GMT
References: <671@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <2897@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Organization: Institute for Cognitive Science, UC San Diego
Lines: 61


In article <2897@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes:

> 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.)

Sounds like a religious proof?  Nowhere + Nowhere + Nothing = nothing

Formal system (in the sense of Hilbert's formalism) has been well
justified in mathematics, but there is no a priori warrant that the
underlying principle of natural language in particular and human
cognition in general is just such a formal system.  In the study of
natural language and human cognition, using formal system as
methodology is one issue, treating it as truth is another.

In generative linguistics, there are two important assumptions: (1)
syntax of language is independent of other aspects of language (such
as semantics and pragmatics) and (2) language is independent of other
mental organs.  Obviously, these are modularity assumptions.  There is
nothing wrong if these assumptions are only used for methodology
purpose, but they are fundamentally flawed if they are taken as truth.

Formal system approach to semantics (including Montague grammar) shows
same formal elegance as what we can find in Chomsky's syntactic
discussions, but it fails to account for many empirical data, too.
Model-theoretic semantics, one branch of formal system approach to
semantics, is even logically inconsistent (see Putnam's proof).

The core of classical theory of categorization is set-theoretical
model, which consists of nothing but abstract entities and sets, and
sets of sets, and sets of sets of sets, etc.  Linguists (especially
those in generative linguistics) simply take for granted the classical
theory of categorization.  This is true of every aspect of generative
linguistics.  In generative phonology, distinctive features are those
such as +voiced and -aspirated; sets are those such as segments marked
+F.  In generative syntax, a language is defined as a set of sentences
which are sequences of phonological feature matrices, and a grammar as
a set of rules which characterizes the set of sentences.  Generative
semantics is almost entirely based on classical theory of
categorization, which is set-theoretical.  Classical theory of
categorization is clearly a basic assumption for formal system
approach (at least generative linguistics) to language.  Without
features, sets, sets of sets, etc., formal system doesn't exist, let
alone formal operation.

> This stuff is just an unwarranted slander against formalism.

I don't think any system built on formalism can make sense of this sentence:-)

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

"Independent" doesn't mean "Isolated".  Take generative linguistics as
an example: syntax is viewed as a module independent of semantics, but
syntax is not isolated from semantics.  Actually, semantics is a
another independent module which takes syntax as input.