{"pk":33050,"title":"Material Object Transfer and Communication of Ideas: Analogy of Naive Theories and its Linguistic Manifestation","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Analogies between material object exchange and communication \nabound in figures of speech, e.g. \"exchange of ideas\" But, as \ntransfer of information entails no loss of it to the donor, the \nobvious analogy fails. To explicate, I consider first a formal, \nminimal naive theory OT M of object location/possession and \ntransfer. Failure of the obvious analogy translates as absence of \nany intuitable model of communication related to OT M by an \nisomorphism which maps people (\"possessors\") to people, and \nobjects (\"possessions\") to ideas (\"propositions\", \"infons\"). \nIsomorphisms to a counterintuitive model MC M of \ncommunication and belief are, however, exhibited which map \nobjects to people (\"believers\") and persons to ideas. Under the \ninterpretation appropriate to MCM , the schemata of crucial \npostulates of OT M instantiate to epistemic instances of the Laws \nof Contradiction and Excluded Middle. MC M features \ncomplementary ideas which, as it were, appropriate or lose \nadherents. Empirical instantiations of this apparently \ncounterintuitive theory are shown to occur in the lexicologies and \nideologies of possession by ideas (and, perhaps, by their yet more \nanthropomorphic spirit avatars) and in the grammar of expressions \nfor a change of mind. Thematic role structure, relations to \n\"middle' constructions and, briefly, use in verbal action are \ndiscussed. I conclude that the mental leap reflected in the linguistic \ndata warrants use of moderately formal tools to investigate open \nclass lexica of natural languages for underiying theories.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"17","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/89d3z36s","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Arthur","middle_name":"","last_name":"Merin","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Stuttgart","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"1995-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/33050/galley/24112/download/"}]}