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Semantics: Difference between revisions
Finish what I wanted to say about models
(Insert arithmetic model diagram) |
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As it turns out, Toaq is a formal language too, which means we can reason about it using models. Now, being a human language, Toaq's semantics are quite a bit more complicated than that of arithmetic, but luckily for us, models are a pretty flexible concept, and we can extend them with extra features as we need them. | As it turns out, Toaq is a formal language too, which means we can reason about it using models. Now, being a human language, Toaq's semantics are quite a bit more complicated than that of arithmetic, but luckily for us, models are a pretty flexible concept, and we can extend them with extra features as we need them. | ||
In its most basic form, a model for Toaq might look something like this: | |||
[[File:Toaq model.svg]] | |||
As you can see, this model holds not just concepts like the meaning of "muao", but also context-sensitive information, such as what "káto" and "jí" refer to. | |||
Say that you have an idea of what the world is like—maybe you have a mental model in your head, or maybe you have a database to look things up in. If your knowledge is complete enough, then that model lets you answer a question, or tell whether what someone said is true, by interpreting their words and then "looking up" the answer. But more often than not, people are working with incomplete knowledge. In this case, if someone tells you something, a model lets you interpret their words and then ''work backwards'' from the meaning to figure out what must be true about the world. | |||
== Semantic calculus == | == Semantic calculus == | ||
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== Presuppositions == | == Presuppositions == | ||
== Propositions == | |||