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Fuzzy Grammar: A Reader
This work brings together classic and recent papers in the philosophical and linguistic analysis of fuzzy grammar, of gradience in meaning, word classes and syntax. Issues such as how many grains make a heap, when a puddle becomes a pond, and so forth, have occupied thinkers since Aristotle and, since the 1980s, have been the subject of increasing interest among linguists as well as in fields such as artificial intelligence and computational linguistics.; The work is designed to be of use to students in all these fields. It has a substantial introduction, is divided into thematic parts, contains annotated sections of further reading, and is fully indexed.
- GenresLinguistics
526 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2004
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January 23, 2022
Rosch, “Principles of Categorization”
There’s no escaping categorization. It’s basic to everything humans think and do. But where do categories come from? And what is their essential nature?
Categories seem to emerge from two sources. On the one hand, the world we perceive consists of structured information, such that the categories which echo that structure can not be called the arbitrary products of history or ‘whimsy.’ For categories to be useful, they need to be optimized to present the most information with the least cognitive effort. By taking advantage of the continuities and discontinuities of the world which our categories represent, we conserve finite cognitive resources in our understanding of our environment.
On the other hand, categorization schemata also vary relative to culture and time. This is because categories are used, like tools, to fulfill the functional needs of the knowing subject who is interacting with a given natural and social environment. Hence, our categories are not exclusively natural, but are always cultural to a lesser or greater degree as well.
Some objects are easier to think about than others. For example, it is basic to visualize a ‘dog’, yet it is almost impossible to visualize an ‘animal’ without specifying the kind of animal. Basic categories have clearer boundaries as well, with categorizers often exploiting natural discontinuities in the environment to make basic cuts. We identify category members by bundles of attributes, but these attributes need not be perceptual stimuli. Attributes can also be actions or motor routines, like a chair is used for sitting and a toothbrush is used for brushing your teeth. The more basic categories have more enumerable motor routines associated with them. If chairs are for sitting, what are pieces of furniture for? Brushing one’s teeth could be divided in discourse into smaller acts (squeezing the tube, putting water on the toothbrush, etc.), but usually aren’t. As Rosch notes, actions, routines, and social etiquette forge a special link between culture and individual psychology.
Some objects come to mind more quickly than others. For example, if someone hears the word ‘bird’, they most likely will think of a robin or a sparrow and not an ostrich or kiwi. Unless they live in South Africa or New Zealand, of course. This prototypical categorization scheme is reflected in hedges, as described by Lakoff: ‘An ostrich is technically a bird’ is okay, but ‘a robin is technically a bird’ is not. Ostriches don’t fly, but there is no reason to doubt whether a robin is a bird. And so a prototypical category has more attributes in common with other category members (the typical size and flying ability of birds as reflected in the robin but not the ostrich), and fewer of the attributes found in members of contrasting categories.
The only criticism I have for Rosch is that she appears to underestimate the value and significance of her own work. I come from a background in cognitive linguistics and anthropology, and I can’t see any way anthropological linguists can talk about mental structure or cognitive processing without Rosch’s insights. Yet she insists her work is not about mental representation but only about the modeling of judgments of degrees of prototypicality. I think she nevertheless does tell us a lot about how the brain works. And her work is so much the better by her insistence that categorization is partly based on (dis-)continuities in the environment and partly the result of cultural constructions.
There’s no escaping categorization. It’s basic to everything humans think and do. But where do categories come from? And what is their essential nature?
Categories seem to emerge from two sources. On the one hand, the world we perceive consists of structured information, such that the categories which echo that structure can not be called the arbitrary products of history or ‘whimsy.’ For categories to be useful, they need to be optimized to present the most information with the least cognitive effort. By taking advantage of the continuities and discontinuities of the world which our categories represent, we conserve finite cognitive resources in our understanding of our environment.
On the other hand, categorization schemata also vary relative to culture and time. This is because categories are used, like tools, to fulfill the functional needs of the knowing subject who is interacting with a given natural and social environment. Hence, our categories are not exclusively natural, but are always cultural to a lesser or greater degree as well.
Some objects are easier to think about than others. For example, it is basic to visualize a ‘dog’, yet it is almost impossible to visualize an ‘animal’ without specifying the kind of animal. Basic categories have clearer boundaries as well, with categorizers often exploiting natural discontinuities in the environment to make basic cuts. We identify category members by bundles of attributes, but these attributes need not be perceptual stimuli. Attributes can also be actions or motor routines, like a chair is used for sitting and a toothbrush is used for brushing your teeth. The more basic categories have more enumerable motor routines associated with them. If chairs are for sitting, what are pieces of furniture for? Brushing one’s teeth could be divided in discourse into smaller acts (squeezing the tube, putting water on the toothbrush, etc.), but usually aren’t. As Rosch notes, actions, routines, and social etiquette forge a special link between culture and individual psychology.
Some objects come to mind more quickly than others. For example, if someone hears the word ‘bird’, they most likely will think of a robin or a sparrow and not an ostrich or kiwi. Unless they live in South Africa or New Zealand, of course. This prototypical categorization scheme is reflected in hedges, as described by Lakoff: ‘An ostrich is technically a bird’ is okay, but ‘a robin is technically a bird’ is not. Ostriches don’t fly, but there is no reason to doubt whether a robin is a bird. And so a prototypical category has more attributes in common with other category members (the typical size and flying ability of birds as reflected in the robin but not the ostrich), and fewer of the attributes found in members of contrasting categories.
The only criticism I have for Rosch is that she appears to underestimate the value and significance of her own work. I come from a background in cognitive linguistics and anthropology, and I can’t see any way anthropological linguists can talk about mental structure or cognitive processing without Rosch’s insights. Yet she insists her work is not about mental representation but only about the modeling of judgments of degrees of prototypicality. I think she nevertheless does tell us a lot about how the brain works. And her work is so much the better by her insistence that categorization is partly based on (dis-)continuities in the environment and partly the result of cultural constructions.
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