From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!convex!mips.mitek.com!spssig.spss.com!markrose Mon Mar  9 18:32:55 EST 1992
Article 4047 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!convex!mips.mitek.com!spssig.spss.com!markrose
>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb26.195645.9914@spss.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1992 19:56:45 GMT
References: <1992Feb24.171942.10981@psych.toronto.edu> <450@tdatirv.UUCP> <1992Feb26.172245.10210@psych.toronto.edu>
Nntp-Posting-Host: spssrs7.spss.com
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Lines: 50

In article <1992Feb26.172245.10210@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu 
(Christopher Green) writes:
>Consider:
>   The boy kicked the ball to the girl.
>   A monster pinned the prince to the wall.
>
>They have the same syntax, but different semantics. Now consider:
>   Jack gave the box to the girl.
>   The girl was given the box by Jack.
>  
>They have the same semantics but different syntax.
>
>It's very simple. What might you be on about?
>Now ots up to you, or some AI-ist, to demonstrate to me that one
>can be reduced to the other. 

Uh, have you ever heard of transformational grammar?

>From "Jack gave the box to the girl" we go, via a dative movement
transformation (something like NP1 V NP2 to NP3 --> NP1 V NP3 NP2),
to "Jack gave the girl the box."  Thence we apply a passivation 
transformation, something like this:

     Jack  gave    the girl  the box
     NP1   PAST V  NP2       NP3
     -->
     NP2       PAST be PPART V  NP3      by NP1
     The girl  was     given    the box  by Jack

Thus, by purely syntactic manipulation we can see the equivalence of
these sentences.

The first two sentences require a different approach.  Their surface syntax
is the same, but TG would not consider them syntactically equivalent.
For instance, the "to" phrase cannot be passivized in both:

    The girl was kicked the ball by the boy.
   *The wall was pinned the prince by the monster.

Many linguists would interpret this as a _syntactic_ difference in the
behavior of "pin" vs. "kick" and "give", to be entered with other syntactic
information in the lexicon.

In other words, the first two sentences can be distinguished, and the second
two seen to be equivalent, by purely syntactic manipulation.  Your ideas
on what syntax can accomplish seem rather naive.

(So might mine, to any linguists reading this.  Suffice it to say that I
am aware of the oversimplifications here, but I didn't want to resume forty 
years of syntactic theory in one post.)


