From: pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Prototypes
Date: 28 Aug 92 10:48:42 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <d9cn0sg@lynx.unm.edu> lgorbet@carina.unm.edu (Larry P Gorbet ANTHROPOLOGY) writes:
>In article <1992Aug27.141918.8820@athena.mit.edu> pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky) writes:
>>In any case, I've been assuming that Cognitive linguistics is
>>"mentalist", not behaviorist.  That is the only way I could interpret
>>the claim that people's categories "are" prototypes.  If my assumption
>>is right, there is a difference between categorization behavior and the
>>mental categories this behavior touches upon, and my questions are
>>relevant: are the mental categories discussed by Lakoff prototypes or
>>not, and how can we tell?
>
>One more time, Lakoff doesn't (nor does anyone else of *any* persuasion 
>I know of) claim that "categories 'are' prototypes".  That's a scarlet
>herring.  The claim is that categories (or at least some or most categories)
>include prototypes (and relations to prototypes, among other relations) as
>part of their structure.  For me (and, I suspect many "Cognitive 
>Linguists"), the more interesting claim about categories is the more
>general one that they have structure at all (apart from the attribute
>lists which, in "classical" theories, define them).

Sorry to make the same slip twice, but it doesn't affect the question I
am asking.  As I indicated, what I'm really interested is the supposed
consequence of the claim that "categories include prototypes" (got it
right at last) for the viability of certain theories of (e.g.) syntax.

There are two issues:

	Is there real evidence that categories ever include prototypes,
	or is the appearance of prototype an artifact of 
	categorization-behavior?

	If the answer to the first question is yes,  do we have any
	warrant to conclude that structural linguistoic notions like
	"noun" includes a prototype?


>
>> If Cognitive linguists assume a priori that
>>there is no *conceivable* gap between categories and categorization
>>behavior (the issue of an *actual* gap being the point I am raising),
>>then there's little point in the discussion.  Cognitive linguistics then
>>doesn't even touch upon the stuff of traditional/generative linguistics,
>>and any debate between them is like arguing whether a car is a machine
>>or a mode of transportation.
>
>I confess I'm not *quite* sure just what you mean by a gap.  If you mean
>they are not the same things, then I agree.  If you mean that categories
>are "prior" to categorization in the sense that categorization depends
>on (existing) categories *but not vice-versa*, then I disagree and ask
>how categories are claimed to come into existence in the first place 
>and to change their characteristics (as surely they do throughout an
>individual's life) if they are unaffected by categorization?  

They may well be affected by categorization-behavior, especially on the
part of others.  The gap remains: there is a mental structure, the
category -- perhaps including a prototype, but I'm still unconvinced.
Then there are the things people say and do, which relate to this
category in one way or another, but are another kettle of fish entirely.

> What
>*evidence* supports at all a classical view of the nature of categories
>other than a (mostly hopeful in my view) possibility that they can be
>"made to work" with some help from external machinery -- i.e. what
>evidence supports them *over alternative accounts*?
>

I'm not being a prioristic.  I just want to know what's right.  And
Lakoff doesn't claim that "categories have prototypes" is merely a null
hypothesis.  He claims that it is correct.  

In any case, contrary to appearances, I'm not prejudging the issue of
categorization, except where it touches on things I have real expertise
about, e.g. syntax, where I'm understandably hesitant to throw away all
the great work I read and teach because of shaky conclusions concerning
how people categorize Popes.  So I want to see some argumentation.

-David Pesetsky
Newsgroups: sci.lang