Jozsef I. Farkas

A Peircean Ontology of Language

Formal models of natural language often suffer from excessive complexity. A reason for this, we think, may be due to the underlying approach itself. In this paper we introduce a novel, semiotic based model of language which provides us with a simple algorithm for language processing.

A Linearly Complex Model for Knowledge Representation

We present two results which complete our Peircean semiotic model of signs introduced in [10]. The first result is concerned with the potential of our model for the representation of knowledge. The second one consists of a formal proof about the models complexity.

A Peircean Framework of Syntactic Structure

A semiotic framework for the syntactic structure of language is introduced. From properties of syntactic signs a parsing algorithm is derived. Using English as aji example it is shown that, by means of its syntactic structures, the English language implements signs, analogous to those of Peirces semiotic triads.

A Peircean Ontology of Semantics

Peirces semiotics can be effectively used for modeling different sorts of signs. In this paper it is argued that semantic signs, which are signs from the semantic point of view, are no exception. It turns out, however, that a proper modeling of semantic signs needs a better understanding of the concept of qualisigns, as well as, of the relation between Peirces categories and his theory of signs.

KNOWLEDGE in FORMATION

The aim of this project is the development of a cognitively based, semiotic model of human information processing with applications in ‘naive’ logical and mathematical symbol processing, natural language parsing, meaningful summarization, ontology design and problem elicitation.

A world of signs

Knowledge is intimately related to signs. In this chapter we elaborate on this relation by considering an important property of phenomena, duality, and its consequences for an ontological definition of signs. The main result of this chapter is the definition of a process model of cognitive activity (‘naive’ knowledge representation).

A semiotic account of interpretation processes

In this chapter we will flesh out the consequences of the assumption that it makes no sense to distinguish aspects of a sign if those aspects do not play a role in the process of interpretation that leads to the generation of a new sign that must, by definition, have the same sign aspects as the original sign. That interpretational process is described by Peirce in terms of different kinds of interpretants. So, as a first step the different sign aspects will be matched with the different interpretant aspects. It will be shown in Sect. 3.1 that some sign aspects are not covered by interpretant aspects. If, as we assumed, it makes no sense to distinguish aspects of a sign if those aspects do not play a role in the process of interpretation, we need to find a way to introduce them. In Sect. 3.2, we propose the semiotic sheet as a means to focus on specific processes of interpretation by interpreting systems. In Sect. 3.3 we will introduce corresponding interpretant aspects for the remaining sign aspects.

From signs to interpretants

In the previous chapter the most general properties of signs were introduced. In this chapter the focus will shift from presenting a list of the most general sign aspects to an analysis of what happens in the process of interpretation, that is, to what can be said about the process in which a sign brings an interpretant into the same relation to its object as the sign itself stands.

Signs and sign interpretation

In 1671, in a letter to the Royal Society for the Improvement of Knowledge, Newton gave a first account of his theory of colors based on the prism experiments he started in 1665. Notably, it was not the colors that drew Newton’s special attention. The refractory potential of glass prisms was commonly known at that time. He was struck by the oblong form and the specific order of colors in the spectrum (Sabra, 1981). In his ‘experimentum crucis’, Newton showed that those light rays are primary in a twofold way. First, by merging them in a single bundle, white light arises again, and second, leading the separate color rays through a second prism does not lead to further refraction. Newton writes (Newton, 1959/1671): “Light it self is a Heterogeneous mixture of refrangible Rays”. Elsewhere he writes: “[Colors are] original and connate properties of the rays just as their respective degrees of refrangibility were”

Perception and cognition

An adequate representation of the interaction experienced by the interpreting system requires that the two types of input qualia, state and effect, are interpreted in themselves as well as in relation to each other. The first requirement follows from the nature of input qualia that they may not precisely match memory information stored by the brain; the second is a consequence of the abstract character of memory signs, representing the general meaning of qualia occurring in earlier observations as abstract combinatory properties. The necessity for such a two-stage operation of cognitive information processing is acknowledged in this chapter by identifying two phases of cognitive activity, which we call perception and cognition. It will be suggested that, although these stages are different, their models can be defined by isomorphic instances of the processing schema introduced in the previous chapter.