Re: Another view on analysis and ER
From: mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org>
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:45:24 +0100
Message-ID: <4759afb9$0$231$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>
>
>
> In casual conversation, I would say "John is crazy" for either one of them.
> But they don't express the same fact. For the first one, if John were to
> be not crazy tomorrow, it would be a sign of a most unusual and unexpected
> recovery from a chronic condition. For the second one, if John were not
> crazy tomorrow, it would probably mean that he went through a psychotic
> episode of short duration.
>
Thanks.
>
> This could get into some deep waters.
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:45:24 +0100
Message-ID: <4759afb9$0$231$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>
David Cressey wrote:
> mAsterdam wrote:
>> David Cressey wrote:
>
>>> To a Spanish speaker, the following are two different facts: >>> "Juan es loco." >>> "Juan está loco."
>
> In casual conversation, I would say "John is crazy" for either one of them.
> But they don't express the same fact. For the first one, if John were to
> be not crazy tomorrow, it would be a sign of a most unusual and unexpected
> recovery from a chronic condition. For the second one, if John were not
> crazy tomorrow, it would probably mean that he went through a psychotic
> episode of short duration.
>
Thanks.
[snip]
>>> Does this mean that the content of the database is different, depending >>> on the first language of the observer? >> One requirement for a database can be: >> make sure that the content is language-neutral.
>
> This could get into some deep waters.
Deep and rich.
> The linguists and programmers who
> have attempted to perform automatic translation between two natural
> languages have repeatedly come up against the obstacle that a language
> neutral scheme for expressing human thought is far more elusive than it
> seems.
Yes. Yet, facts in shared databases make a comparativly simple subset of what can be expressed in a narrative way.
Development of a database for a multilingual organization does face the requirement that the extension should be language-neutral. This seems more achievable than automatic translation. Received on Fri Dec 07 2007 - 21:45:24 CET