RE: nature -> "human brain" -> "language terms" ==>> knowledge ?
Dear Gary,
Names (of people, towns, etc. ) should be definitely excluded,
in the proposed processing - thank you for your comment.
As far as noun "hammer" is concerned - I "intuitively" (;-) ) expect it to be found (using the proposed method processing procedure) as a derivative from the "tool" - I do not see any problems with my proposed method for it - here is the (incomplete ) set, which I am trying to "gather" on the fly, while writing this e-mail:
{
hammer
[
<apply>
<use>
<bring>
<get>
<put>
...
]
}
Thanks,
Best Regards,
Alex
***********
Alex suggested an approach to “retrieving ‘raw knowledge’, being captured in the language terminology, via the means of the hierarchical classification of all terms (nouns), contained in the given human language based on the verb <-> noun grouping” - an idea borrowed by him from the Software Object Oriented representation of the class (object). I think, however, there are many issues to supposing” for each term (noun) available in the language, one can "gather" the set of all verbs, which could be related to the given term (noun). For some noun-things like a “hammer” we can associate a focused set of verbs or better yet relationships expressed by predicate. However every human language is a system of conventions that define for participants with a set of means for encoding an unlimited class of concepts. A hammer can be used to wedge a door open, for example and an indefinite number of extended usages in different contexts. Fillmore developed a theory of lexical semantic!
s called Frame Semantics which stressed the importance of linking word meanings to the 'frame' of general ideas that define them. This may be a better way to get at knowledge – not “raw” but in context. So the relations of nouns and verbs constitute an open set with some constructed and interpreted on the fly using schemas of knowledge.
As a further example of issues with a simple verb to noun associate, the class of nouns includes such concrete types of things as milk, money, furniture, soil and places, which I have difficulty binding to a small set of verbs. Washington is a place for example. How would one go about establishing the one-to-one unique relationship with the given specific set of verbs and implied relations that go with Washington? As a collective noun Washington does many things and has many relations, like acquiring a ball team and choking on traffic. There are also problems with abstract noun concepts like “justice” that might quickly daunt an attempt to build a verb tree to align to it.
We quickly get into a discussion of semantics. The units of semantics are concepts which are not usually in a one-one relationship with noun and verb words:
one word may contribute several concepts (lexical semantics),
one concept may be built on the basis of two or more words (semantic phrasing).
One of the leading ideas of cognitive linguistics is that there are no natural boundaries that bound language - Word meanings fade into encyclopedic knowledge much of which is individual to a person based on embodied experience.
There are fair amount of cognitive theories that might be applied to this discussion. Langacker has a psychological theory of Cognitive (after Gestalt psychology) which uses framework for analyzing meaning in noun verb terms using notions such as schemas, profiles and landmarks. So if we are trying to get at raw knowledge we might consider some approaches that come out of cognitive linguistics instead of an object modeling procrustean bed.
Gary Berg-Cross Ph.D.
Cognitive Psychologist
Knowledge Strategies
Potomac Maryland