[SCL] Re: Formal Semantics =/= Semantics

[pat hayes]

>o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
>John,
>
>What you are doing here is treating the "language of sets" (LOS)
>as a canonical language and prospectively providing translations
>from various other languages to LOS.  Futhermore, you are trying
>to do this by purely syntactic means, that is, without the boost
>of "collateral acquaintaince" with objects, the way your average
>human translator might.
>
>Now, if you want to call these syntactic translations by the name
>of "formal semantics" or "model theory", well, you are in a large
>if not so good company, and so you can probably keep doing that.
>
>But I think that it would be a service to all concerned to clear up
>this long-standing confusion once and for all, and to state up front
>that formal semantics, done in this vein, has nothing semantic to it,
>not in the sense of objective reference, the way most folks understand
>the term.
>
>Jon Awbrey

Jon. Thanks for your advice, but your views on these rather grand 
topics are not of interest to us, and you  are trespassing in a 
rather busy working space.

Please do not send any more messages to this list which are not 
directly addressed to the actual topic of SCL. You can find out more 
about the issues we are working on by reading the documents and the 
email archives.

Already I have had complaints about the email volume not directed to 
issues of relevance. If we get any more messages from you which are 
not directed towards a technical matter of interest to the group, we 
will be obliged to unsubscribe you from the list.

Pat Hayes

>o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
>John F. Sowa wrote:
>>
>>  Pat,
>>
>>  Frank's suggestion is good.  That is indeed a common way
>>  of associating semantics with syntax in compilers and other
>>  language processors:
>>
>>  FF> I don't see a one-to-one mapping of "productions" to
>>   > semantic descriptions, so my sense is that the semantic
>>   > description is incomplete in the current draft.  I'm sure
>>   > that a precise description is intended, but I am not seeing
>>   > it within the current draft.
>>
>>  PH> The semantic is gathered into one table, which is the
>>   > preferred way to described a model theory. It is particularly
>>   > important in this case since the syntax does not suffice
>>   > in isolation to provide the semantics precisely.
>>
>>  The table could be cross referenced to the syntactic production
>>  rules.  But the relationships won't be exactly one-to-one for
>>  all CL-conformant languages, since some languages will require
>>  purely syntactic rearrangements (sometimes called "syntactic
>>  sugar"), which do not directly affect the semantics.  The
>>  so-called semantics of those rules would simply move things
>>  around or add "eye-candy" to the notation.
>>
>>  And by the way, I am very happy with the following decision:
>>
>>  PH> The only issue is how to define the scope of a name when
>>   > naming a...er...thingie, for subsequent importing. So I suggest
>>   > we adopt 'text' for a sequence or set of sentences, and 'module'
>>   > for a piece of text with a name and (optionally) a header, and
>>   > I will learn to avoid saying 'ontology' in an SCL context.
>>
>>  John
>>
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>
>o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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