Re: virus: Question

Robin Faichney (r.j.faichney@stir.ac.uk)
Mon, 9 Jun 1997 15:39:00 +0100


Grant wrote:
>
>On Mon, 9 Jun 1997, Robin Faichney wrote:
>
>> >Otherwise how could you explain that we can teach formal
>> >languages to each other via natural language ?
>> >
>> >There must be more than just a fleeting resemblance, don't
>> >you think ?

Please watch your attributions -- I did *not* write that.

>Since formal language is a subset of natural language, how can
>it be different from it? Is you hand different from your body?

No formal language I know is in any significant
sense a subset of a natural language. (I don't
consider the facts that both are languages,
and one is smaller than the other, to be
significant.) There again, of course, my hand
*is* different from my body -- I'd have difficulty
in buying a jacket to fit it! :-)

Robin