
Traditional computer systems categorize in a strict, rigid fashion. An
object or a pattern is either totally a member of a class or totally not a
member. You either have a myocardial infarction or nonspecific abdomi-
nal pain. Only in the past few years, with the acceptance of fuzzy logic,
has the hard science world begun to recognize the validity of approxi-
mate reasoning and fuzzy category membership.
It is only a short leap from there to another theme that has insinuated
itself into the current narrative, which is the bottom-up view of lan-
guage. Language is a sticky topic, for many reasons. First, there are many
theories of language and beliefs ...