{"id":88,"date":"2007-11-11T14:58:18","date_gmt":"2007-11-11T13:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/?p=88"},"modified":"2007-11-11T14:58:18","modified_gmt":"2007-11-11T13:58:18","slug":"the-network-comprises-a-subset-of-the-words-the-%e2%80%9ccontent-words%e2%80%9d-of-a-particular-natural-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/2007\/11\/11\/the-network-comprises-a-subset-of-the-words-the-%e2%80%9ccontent-words%e2%80%9d-of-a-particular-natural-language\/","title":{"rendered":"The network comprises a subset of the words (the \u201ccontent words\u201d) of a particular natural language"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thought as word dynamics. II. Architecture (4)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Indo-European languages there are two types of words. Every speaker has a very strong intuitive feeling of this. We have no difficulty when defining the meaning \u2013 or offering a definition \u2013 of words of the first type: \u201ca rose is a flower that has many petals, often pink, a strong and very pleasant fragrance, a thorny stem,\u201d etc.; \u201ca tire is a rubber envelope to a wheel, inflated with air,\u201d etc. With the second type, we’re in real trouble: for instance with the word \u2018nonetheless,\u2019 \u201cit is used when one wishes to suggest that while a second idea may \u2013 at first sight \u2013 look contradictory to one first expressed, it is however the case, etc\u2026\u201d When trying to define a word like \u201cnonetheless\u201d I typically cannot resolve myself to say that it \u201cmeans\u201d something, I\u2019d rather claim \u2013 like I did above \u2013 that \u201cit is used when…,\u201d and revealingly I am forced to express this usage through quoting \u2013 if not a true synonym of it, at least, as with \u201chowever\u201d\u2013 a word which is used in very similar contexts. <\/p>\n

The first type of words are often called \u201ccontent words,\u201d the second \u201cframework-\u201d or \u201cstructure words\u201d (1). Dictionaries have an easy time with the first and a rotten time with the second, doing like has been done here with \u201cnonetheless\u201d: resorting to the cheap trick of referring to a closely related word, the meaning \u2013 the usage \u2013 of which the reader is supposedly more familiar with. The English philosopher Gilbert Ryle, interestingly called the first type \u201ctopic-committed\u201d and the second \u201ctopic-neutral.\u201d He wrote: \u201cWe may call English expressions \u2018topic-neutral\u2019 if a foreigner who understood them, but only them, could get no clue at all from an English paragraph containing them, what that paragraph was about\u201d (Ryle 1954: 116).<\/p>\n

In the technically unambiguous language used by the medieval logicians, the first were called \u201ccategoremes\u201d and the second, \u201csyncategoremes.\u201d (2) Intuitively speaking we can understand this as meaning that \u201ccontent-words\u201d are essentially concerned with telling us what is the category, the \u201ckind,\u201d the \u201csort\u201d of things we\u2019re talking about; while the second type of words, the \u201cframework-words\u201d are essentially playing a syntactic<\/em> role, a \u201cmortar\u201d type of role \u2013 which would explain why we\u2019re at trouble explaining what they \u201cmean\u201d and feel more comfortable describing how they\u2019re being \u201cused.\u201d <\/p>\n

The network I’m talking about is constituted of \u201ccontent-words\u201d: these are the building blocks of a network where roses connect with red and violets with blue. The other words, the \u201cframework-words\u201d are not part of this particular network, they\u2019re stored in a different manner, they\u2019re summoned to make the \u201ccontent-words\u201d stick together, as the mortar of a particular kind that will make these words, or such combinations of words, work together within a clause. Like what was mentioned in an attempt to give a definition for \u201cnonetheless\u201d: that it is used when the two states of things which are brought together may seem at first sight to be contradictory. In order to ease the clash, to relieve the affective discomfort that arises when contradictory states-of-affair are brought together, a word like \u201cnonetheless\u201d is pasted between the parties at war. With \u201cnonetheless,\u201d the states-of-affairs evoked come from distant places in meaning-space: bringing them together creates an imbalance that needs to be resolved. The talking subject who\u2019s connecting in his speech the states-of-affairs which are on either side of the \u201cnonetheless,\u201d cringes. So s\/he stuffs between them a \u201ccontradiction insulator,\u201d a \u201ccompatibility patch\u201d like nonetheless<\/em>. And everything is once again fine. \u201cThe Duke knew that his best interest and the Princess\u2019s too was that he wouldn\u2019t try to see her again. Nonetheless, the following morning…\u201d The \u201cnonetheless\u201d relieves my worry, I won\u2019t care for that Duke any longer: if he\u2019s that kind of fool, well, good for him! What do I care! <\/p>\n

\u201cFramework-words\u201d are part of what I will call in Section 14 the \u201ccoatings\u201d: the coatings that out of the words found in a finite path along the Network create a proper sentence.<\/p>\n

(1) Not every language deals with such distribution of \u201ccontent-\u201d and \u201cframework-words\u201d in a similar way. Languages like Chinese and Japanese are much more sparing in their use of \u201cframework-words\u201d than Indo-European languages are. Archaic Chinese for one had very few of those and meaning was emerging essentially from the bringing together \u2013 without further qualification \u2013 of \u201ccontent-words\u201d.<\/p>\n

(2) Ernest Moody sums up the issue in the following manner: \u201cThe signs and expressions from which propositions can be constructed were divided by the mediaeval logicians into two fundamentally different classes: syncategorematic <\/em>signs, such as have only logical or syntactic functions in sentences, and categorematic<\/em> signs (i.e. \u201cterms\u201d in the strict sense) such as have independent meaning and can be subjects or predicates of categorical propositions. We may quote Albert of Saxony\u2019s (1316-1390) definitions of these two classes of signs or of \u201cterms\u201d in the broad sense.
\n\u2018A categorematic<\/em> term is said to be one which, taken significatively can be a subject or predicate (…) of a categorical proposition. For example, those terms \u2018man\u2019, \u2018animal\u2019, \u2018stone\u2019, are called categorematic<\/em> terms because they have a definite and determinate signification. A syncategorematic<\/em> term, however, is said to be one which, taken significatively, cannot be the subject or the predicate (\u2026) of a categorical proposition. Of the kind are these terms \u2018every\u2019, \u2018not any\u2019, \u2018some\u2019, etc. which are called signs of universality or particularity; and similarly, signs of negation such as this negative \u2018not\u2019, and signs of composition such as this conjunction \u2018and\u2019, and disjunctions such as this disjunctive \u2018or\u2019, and exclusive or exceptive propositions such as \u2018other than\u2019, \u2018only\u2019, and words of this sort\u2019 (Logica I<\/em>). In the 14th century it became customary to call the categorematic terms the matter <\/em>of propositions, and the syncategorematic signs (as well as the order and arrangement of the constituents of the sentence), the form<\/em> of propositions (Moody 1953: 16-17)<\/p>\n

Moody, E. A. 1953 Truth and consequence in Mediaeval Logic<\/em>, Amsterdam: North-Holland<\/p>\n

Ryle, G., 1954 Dilemmas<\/em>, The Tarner Lectures 1953, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thought as word dynamics. II. Architecture (4)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Indo-European languages there are two types of words. Every speaker has a very strong intuitive feeling of this. We have no difficulty when defining the meaning \u2013 or offering a definition \u2013 of words of the first type: \u201ca rose is a flower that has many petals, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}