unbent@ecsvax.UUCP (03/31/84)
==>
As usual, let's have some distinctions. I think the
one we need today is the type/token distinction. Regardez:
(1) sheep sheep
How many *words* on line (1)? If you answer "two", then
you're counting word *tokens*; if you answer "one word,
repeated twice", then you're counting word *types*.
Traditional questions regarding "synonymy" are
concerned with word *types*, not with word *tokens*. "How a
word *looks*" is concerned with features of word *tokens*--
ergo, has nothing to tell us about synonymy. Notice, for
example, that tokens of the *Latin* sentence "Jam dies" ("It
is day", I think) look just like tokens of the *English*
sentence "Jam dies" (a comment on the mortality of preserves).
If you require intersubstitutivity preserving "all
appreciable states of the reader" for synonymy, you're not
going to find any synonyms. As any poet knows, *affective*
states of the readers aren't preserved under type-
substitutions. Traditionally, however, synonymy requires only
that "meaning" be preserved. There's lots of philosophical
debate about what that might entail, but here, at least,
you'll find some plausible *candidates*: 'too' and 'also',
for example, or 'optometrist' and 'eye doctor'. (Those are
intra-linguistic examples. Inter-linguistic examples might
get one even closer.)
Yours for clearer concepts, --Jay Rosenberg
Dept. of Philosophy
...mcnc!ecsvax!unbent Univ. of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27514rld@pyuxbb.UUCP (Bob Duncanson) (04/05/84)
==> > As usual, let's have some distinctions. I think the > one we need today is the type/token distinction. Regardez: > > (1) sheep sheep > > How many *words* on line (1)? If you answer "two", then > you're counting word *tokens*; if you answer "one word, > repeated twice", then you're counting word *types*. I see two words. One is singular, the other is plural. -- Bob Duncanson AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway NJ {eagle,allegra,cbosgd,ihnp4}!pyuxbb!rld
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (04/06/84)
Excuse me. Synonyms are different words with the same meaning. Sheep (singular) and sheep (plural) do not have have the same meaning. It is an example of a word with multiple meanings. -Ron
unbent@ecsvax.UUCP (04/07/84)
==> Sorry, bad example. The singular/plural ambiguity of 'sheep' escaped me. Please substitute, say, 'horse', or 'cigarette', or 'or', or.... appropriately in <ecsvax.2219>. [I trust that the *point* was clear enough in any event.] Yours for better examples, --Jay Rosenberg Dept. of Philosophy ...mcnc!ecsvax!unbent Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27514