RE: [humanmarkup-comment] RE: [topicmaps-comment] multilingual thesaurus - language, scope, and topic naming constraint

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

To take a cue from the discussion going on at XML-Dev on 
association of semantics and behaviors, as in LISP, semantics 
are a projection onto a name value.  The interpreter rules.  
HyTime AFs serve as a means to make an explicit map among 
enabling architectures.

These are not heady concepts.  They are implementation 
constraints.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: psp [mailto:beadmaster@ontologystream.com]

<header>  This is a complex message - perhaps of some theoretical interest
to the cc list.  However, if Points of Contact at DARPA, OSTP and NSF are
not interested in this discussion; then we request a different point of
contact.  -Paul Prueitt OSI </header>

****
****

Tom Passin said about the excellent post by Bernard Valant,


"I didn't think of representing that those words themselves stood
for different concepts.  Interesting!"

to the topicmaps-comment forum (at Oasis).

***

<Paul Prueitt>

A brief note here regarding the scope of a word due to language setting.  I
think that what I will say here will not be a surprise to linguists.

It is NOT simply an "technical understanding of the language" that provides
the real scope of a word in a language.  Meaning occurs and can only be
fully understood in the cultural setting and realities of the social system.
To hold the opposition position (that an Interlingua exists in an absolute
sense) is speculative, at best.  This position is reductionism at core (this
is my claim), since it claims that all natural language can be reduced to a
single deep structure.  Perhaps Professor Lakoff will make a comment on
this?

"Contextual is also pragmatic, as the word *lives* in a cultural setting.
(Fiona Citkin, Head translator of the ARL sponsored conference (1995 - 1999)
on Soviet Semiotics) private communication.)"

In most cases the (Whorf?) problem is not so bad.  However, in many cases
profound misunderstanding can come because of an assumption that it is a
technical understanding of a second language that stands in for the cultural
experience. Yes?   Machine translation systems have this problem often.
Yes?

On the practice of constructing static topic map?   Well **perhaps** the TM
community sees the real problem that comes from an early binding of scope
during the production of TMs by one person and the use of the TM by someone
who has a different point of view.

These TM are becoming engines that will do things?  And thus the issue of
false Sense Making is vital - since evidence indicate miscommunication
**between humans** sometimes distorts the meaning in diplomatic channels.
Tonfoni makes the (private) argument that diplomatic miscommunication was
responsible for much of the diplomatic errors made before the Gulf War.
{Certainly, the American Nation is close, in many instances, to false sense
making with respect to many issues where we are using great force to achieve
outcomes that is proper, but that... we are not properly understanding the
**scope**.   }  This is not a small matter!

*False* sense making (Karl Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations), using off
the shelf ontology (static TM), is a big problem that is not completely
solved using HyTime...

http://www.bcngroup.org/area3/pprueitt/private/KM_files/frame.htm

The issue is reflected in the problem with machine based declassification
and a operational theory of similarity, as I have stated in:

http://www.bcngroup.org/area3/pprueitt/SDIUT/sdlong.htm

This is a long and unpublished paper.

I hope that the TM community will realize that I am NOT criticizing the
important work that has been done over the past several years using Topic
Maps.  But there continues to be a problem, and Bernard's message states
this problem *perfectly*.  yes?

***


I have an approach to mapping the functional load between one word and all
other words in natural use in a language.  This is completely novel and new
(I think).

It is the eventChemistry as applied to word co-occurrence.  I have studied
the Aesop fable collection in English... but I need some help with issues
like noun and verb differentiation.. and case grammars.  There are a lot of
similarities to Latent Semantic Indexing.. but eventChemistry has
visualization and a few other surprises.

Is there anyone (a linguist) who would like to do this work on the fable
collection (likely requiring 30 - 40 hours of effort, using the
eventChemistry software.  What we might go after is a description of the
functional load of some of the terms as used by Aesop in his fables.

http://www.ontologystream.com/bSLIP/finalReview.htm

So, some of you already see where this is going; the notion is that mapping
single word usage in natural settings will provide a single atom (node with
affordance links)  --- as in Peirce's Unifying Logic Vision...  concepts are
like chemical compounds that are composed of atoms".

This single atom is like the event atoms I have developed to study cyber war
and innovation adoption (both of these are **intrusions** from one level of
natural activity into another level of natural activity.)  Please just look
at the short paper on this at the above URL.

It would seems that this would make a good publication, and perhaps even
identify a value proposition?

The mark-up of the context setting is addressed nicely in the work of
Tonfoni

http://www.bcngroup.org/area3/gtonfoni/EIVD/index.html



Paul Prueitt
OntologyStream Inc.
Chantilly VA


I have copied Bernard's message below for two other forums.. as the issue of
scope is so beautifully expressed:



****

-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard Vatant [mailto:bernard.vatant@mondeca.com]
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 4:46 AM
To: topicmaps-comments
Cc: stefan.jensen@eea.eu.int
Subject: Re: [topicmaps-comment] multilingual thesaurus - language,
scope, and topic naming constraint




Thanks to all who tried to answer, both on this list and through private
communications.

Now let me expose what I found out yesterday night - just after switching
off the
computer - with that delicious feeling you have when a long searched
solution suddenly
appears obvious and crystal clear, just because you have, at last, looked at
it the right
and simple way, and all the previous attempts look awkward and far-fetched.

But, be patient. A bit of history. Last year, I was investigating that
question with
Seruba research team, unfortunately swept from the scene by economical
constraints. The
solution I had suggested at the time was to consider terms in different
languages as n
distinct topics, independent from the abstract descriptor, itself considered
topic n+1.
And then link those guys together through associations, asserting something
like:
"This topic is an abstract descriptor, representing an abstract concept,
independent from
any language. Those topics represent the term used in those languages to
represent this
descriptor concept".
In putting the concept and the terms on different levels of topics, we had a
technical way
to manage synonymy and polysemy. But, like solutions proposed by Kal or Tom,
that was only
a stealth, and I remember one of Seruba's linguists, very skeptical about
it, keeping
saying to me "It works, but it does not make sense!"

And he was right! The only sustainable viewpoint is that there is no such
thing as a
*concept independent of its representation by a term in a certain language*.
Every
attachment of a term to a concept is always asserted in the scope of a
certain language,
and every other language conveys a slightly or radically different view of
the world and
organisation of concepts, and that's why lingual diversity is so precious,
and translation
so difficult ...

So we have to go back to basics: one subject = one topic.
(DAN : okonomi), (DUT : economie), (ENG : economy), (FRE : economie), (GER :
Wirtschaft),
(SPA : economia) convey a priori six different concepts and views of the
world, that
someone familiar with all those languages could certainly feel, even if the
differences
are subtle. Hence they are six different subjects, and therefore have to be
represented by
six different topics. They are not six names of the same topic in different
scopes, and
definitely not variants.
And they are not even representations of a same descriptor in different
languages. The 7th
topic, standing in the middle of nowhere outside of any language scope, does
not make
sense, because it has no meaningful subject. Note that if you give a
definition of the
descriptor, you always give it in some default language ...

So what is a descriptor, putting together those six concepts for the purpose
of
cross-language communication and translation?
What do you do when you gather topics? Obvious - you build an association.
And what is the
scope of that association? The scope of the language viewpoint from which
you assert this
association, that means the default language of the thesaurus ...
This association asserts that those topics can be considered as
"equivalent", allowing a
translation which makes sense, maybe in a certain scope. Note that the scope
is not on the
names, but on the association. And that the associations are not necessarily
the same if I
stand from another language viewpoint. So if I edit the thesaurus with a
different default
language, I will certainly have to change the set of associations.

That approach is deeply respecting the diversity of *concepts* conveyed by
the different
languages. All previous approaches are in fact killing the linguistic
diversity, if you
look at them closely, because the default language of the descriptor imposes
the set of
concepts, and the other languages are to find willy-nilly a name for it.

And this is really enabled by the topic map representation.

Think about it. I've got to put all that in XTM now.

Regards

Bernard



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