Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Example
A researcher might wish to distinguish the private individual Samuel
Langhorne Clemens from the author Mark Twain. For this purpose,
a valuable system would not conflate the individual's two distinguish-
able aspects but rather allow differentiation. Later, the same researcher
might seek information that combines Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens
as a single entity. Therefore, an information retrieval system should be
capable of both differentiating and linking occurrences of these differ-
ent names. Originally conceived as fictional in a double sense (Warner
2000), the example does have real historical roots. Collections of copy-
right proceedings index Twain's copyright disputes under his legal name
(Clemens) without providing a link to his pen name (Copyright Decisions
1909). A generic search for Twain and Clemens as a single entity across
different sources would have to adapt the terminology already used to
search the particular source in use. While index terms can offer discrimi-
nations and links between related subjects, selection power is considered
characteristic of human consciousness, derivable from but not inhering in
semiotic products.
The relation between combined identity (Mark Twain and Samuel
Clemens as author and private individual) and separate identities (Mark
Twain [author] and Samuel Clemens [private individual]) corresponds to
the genus: species relation, with public: not public as the differentiating
factor. Figure 2.1 illustrates this relationship. The genus: species relation
occurs repeatedly in indexing languages (for instance, in thesaural rela-
tions between broader and narrower terms and in the relation of indexing
terms taken from a controlled vocabulary to the language of discourse,
particularly as generic scope contrasted with specificity). For formal logic,
the species: genus is analogous to material implication (p isamemberof q
has similar truth conditions to p implies q), although the variables for
material implication could denote objects rather than classes (Bell 1937,
volume 2, 491). Material implication has been the most productive and
most difficult of logical relations (Quine 1937/1953, 84).
Discrimination between Twain (author) and Clemens (private individ-
ual) could be obtained by:
r direct serial reading of relevant texts, where the searcher expends labor
in reading and discrimination, possibly creating an index;
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