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From: liny@clu.cf.ac.uk (Yuen Lin)
Subject: natural language as a means for reasoning and thinking
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Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 12:42:21 GMT
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Hi all,

After nearly a decade of researching in logic and (computational) linguistics
I have come to realise that both are still far from being
satisfactory in explaining how natural language works. The basic
problem seems to lie in the fact that researchers always try
to seek generalisations in language, and arrive at formula which are
abstract and not in the language. I don't want to go into the
details now, as it is not the aim of this posting.

To me, we ordinary people do a lot of thinking and reasoning in
natural language itself. This is not to deny the fact that there
are other types of reasoning which do not involve language, eg.
children do reason before they master language. But, wouldn't it
be a good idea to treat natural language itself as the vehicle
for reasoning, instead of things such as logic (in the strict sense),
or mental representations and mental logic? There might be a mental
logic, which is more fundamental than language, and into which
language and other stuff translate. But language is accessible, but
mental logic (or language) is not, no body knows what it is.
Wouldn't we still make a lot of contribution to language and mind if
we figured out how people reason with language itself? 

I have spent a lot of thinking and done some research on this topic, 
but I would like to know other people's views on it. Among others,
I am particularly interested in knowing:

	1. general frameworks supporting or against the proposed view, and
	2. research which provides some details, rather than just
		surface discussions.

Looking forward to hearing from you.  Emails preferred. If there are
sufficient responses, I will post a summary later on.


Yuen Q. Lin
School of English and Philosophy
University of Wales Cardiff

