β Scribed by D. Partridge
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
So-called "semantic networks" are notations which make explicit much of the implicit syntax of say, English. The mapping from an English sentence to a portion of the network, often claimed to be "understanding" of the sentence, is a mapping of one notation (the English language) to another (the "semantic network"). This viewpoint in no way belittles the achievements that such a mapping, in general terms, may represent nor does it detract from the potential value of the "semantic network" notation. What it does do is, first highlight the customary arbitrariness with which the term "syntax" and "semantics", and hence "understanding" are applied, and leads to a more systematic application of these concepts. Second, it raises the question of why one notation (grammar, syntax) is more useful than another, and again suggests an answer. Thus we can formulate rather differently the goals of a "semantic network" notation in contrast to the usual goal: the explication of the "semantic" content of language constructs. A goal that tends to lack either realism or substance, as "semantics" stubbornly resists attempts at an absolute, formal circumscription that is both conceptually adequate and logically consistent.
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