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Encyclopedic competence can be represented in many ways. It is improbable that it can take the format of a dictionary-like Porphyrian tree, as a hierarchy of atomic properties ruled by relations of entailment from the lower to the upper nodes (for a critique of a Porphyrian tree, see Eco 1984), even though part of the encyclopedic representation can take this format. For instance, according to some suggestions of Putnam (1975) and Neubauer and Petöfi (1981), the representation of the content of a given lexical item can also take into account experts' knowledge arranged in some taxonomic tree; but, at the same time, it should take into account also stereotyped knowledge, where frequently the properties are not hierarchically ordered, and it would be difficult to decide which properties are more or less "necessary" or "essential" (for a criticism of a clear-cut distinction between necessary and unnecessary properties, see Quine (1951) and the text semiotic discussion in Eco 1979a:8.5). Moreover, an encyclopedic representation must take into account also frames (van Dijk 1977; Fillmore 1976a, 1976b; Petöfi 1976a) and scripts (Schank and Abelson 1977; Schank and Riesbeck 1981). As for the manner of providing contextual instructions, see the various attempts of case grammar (Fillmore 1968, 1977; Bierwisch 1970, 1971; Bierwisch and Kiefer 1970) and of instructional semantics (Schmidt 1976). |
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As an interesting attempt to outline the spectrum of a possible encyclopedic representation of the expression chlorine, the model proposed by Neubauer and Petöfi (1981) is given in Table 14.1. |
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Let us call all the potential information displayed by the encyclopedia the content of the expression, or as the whole of what is semantically included. Such a catholic representation can include, as we said, many co-textual instructions formulated in different ways, as well as frames and presuppositions. In the case of chlorine, the kind of information provided dictates, by means of"atomic" properties, the contexts in which the term can be properly inserted, and many of the arrays of "atomic" properties could be elaborated into frames (for instance, how to produce chlorine; see the example of the definition of lithium, given by Peirce, C.P. 2.330, and discussed in Eco 1979a:7.2.6). The instruction for inserting verbs in contexts, as well as the information about the presuppositions of the p-terms, should be provided by other kinds of interpretants. |
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2.2. Encyclopedic Differences between Presuppositions and Other Inclusions |
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The encyclopedic model outlined in the previous section helps one understand the way in which those meaning postulates that we have |
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