Ontology of Communication

The book gives a comprehensive discussion of Database Semantics (DBS) as an agent-based data-driven theory of how natural language communication essentially works. In language communication, agents switch between , driven by cognition-internal content (input) resulting in cognition-external raw data (e.g. sound waves or pixels, which have no meaning or grammatical properties but can be measured by natural science), and , driven by the raw data produced by the speaker resulting in cognition-internal content. The motivation is to compare two approaches for an ontology of communication: agent-based data-driven vs. sign-based substitution-driven. means: design of a cognitive agent with (i) an interface component for converting raw data into cognitive content (recognition) and converting cognitive content into raw data (action), (ii) an on-board, content-addressable memory (database) for the storage and content retrieval, (iii) separate treatments of the speak and the hear mode. means: (a) mapping a cognitive content as input to the speak-mode into a language-dependent surface as output, (b) mapping a surface as input to the hear-mode into a cognitive content as output. Oppositely, means: no distinction between speak and hear mode, whereas means: using a single start symbol as input for generating infinitely many outputs, based on substitutions by rewrite rules.