Mystery Number Two - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 45

DBS models the remaining parts of speech by assimilating them into noun,
verb, and adjective proplets. For example, traditional grammar classifies 2.
noun and 5. pronoun as different parts of speech, 13 but in DBS they have the
same core attribute noun . This is because a pronoun like she can serve the
same grammatical function (for example, as subject) as a proper name like
Julia or a phrasal noun like the pretty young girl .
The correct distinction between phrasal nouns, pronouns, and proper names
is of a sign-theoretic nature: they use different mechanisms of reference (cf.
FoCL'99, Sect. 6.1; NLC'06, Sect. 2.6), namely those of the symbol, the in-
dexical, and the proper name. Given that phrasal nouns and proper names,
despite their different reference mechanisms, are traditionally included in the
part of speech noun , there is no reason to exclude pronouns just because they
use yet another mechanism of reference, i.e., indexical. Consequently, in DBS
all three kinds of nouns are analyzed as proplets with the same core attribute.
This is illustrated by the following proplets for a common noun, a pronoun,
and a proper name. Also included is a determiner because DBS lexically ana-
lyzes determiners as proplets with the core attribute noun (7.2.4):

3.5.2 A NALYZING DIFFERENT KINDS OF NOUNS AS LEXICAL PROPLETS

common noun pronoun proper name determiner

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

sur: books
noun: book
cat: pn
sem: count pl
fnc:
mdr:
prn:

sur: they
noun: ça
cat: pnp
sem: count pl
fnc:
mdr:
prn:

sur: Julia
noun: Julia
cat: nm
sem: sg
fnc:
mdr:
prn:

sur: every
noun: n_1
cat: snp
sem: pl exh
fnc:
mdr:
prn:

The common noun proplet has a core value defined as a concept which is
represented as topic , serving as a placeholder (6.6.8); analyzed word forms
with a concept as their meaning are called symbols . The pronoun proplet has
a core value defined as a pointer which is represented as ça ; 14 analyzed word
forms with a pointer as their meaning are called indexicals .The proper name
proplet has a core value defined as a marker which is represented as Julia .
The analysis of determiners (which some traditional grammars treat as a sep-
arate part of speech) as noun proplets facilitates the fusion of a determiner and
its noun, as illustrated in 7.2.4. The core value of a determiner is a substitution
variable; during interpretation in the hear mode, this variable is replaced with
the core value of the associated common noun. In some languages, e.g., Ger-

13 This misguided PoS distinction was postulated by Dionysius Thrax (170 - 90 BC).
14 See Chap. 11 for the interpretation of third person pronouns.