tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post3681462395802016013..comments2024-03-27T10:47:33.255+00:00Comments on Architecture, Data and Intelligence: Deconstructing The Grammar of BusinessRichard Veryardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-38947656607617637442009-08-06T17:28:13.642+01:002009-08-06T17:28:13.642+01:00As Chris points out, lots of nouns are disguised v...As Chris points out, lots of nouns are disguised verbs. In fact most if not all nouns can be interpreted as disguised verbs. <br /><br />A bright 8-year-old child should be able to sort words into Nouns and Verbs. But proper grammatical analysis needs something a bit more sophisticated. Transitives, gerunds, ablatives, you name it.Richard Veryardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-75169966159657824192009-06-21T15:03:00.027+01:002009-06-21T15:03:00.027+01:00Time to reread Lakoff's "Women, Fire and ...Time to reread Lakoff's "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things". A wonderful treatise on categorization and structure in linguistics and language.<br /><br />Somehow we have to drive into the context - discover those things that are implicit in our conversations. I think all of us who have taught data modeling have used the "find the nouns" approach. And, in classes we have usually presented quite clear environment statements so the nouns are findable. <br />It isn't a rote process though. Some of the nouns are derived from verbs. So in the examples given sale comes from the verb "to sell", so while a sale is a noun, it is abstract. We modelers have to have an understanding of that concept in order to probe what's is really going on. Since sale is derived from a ditransitive verb, we would expect to see a subject (a useful noun), a direct object, and an indirect object - all of which are likely to be useful nouns/entity candidates. <br />Where Lakoff comes in is figuring out what category to apply to these various nouns. What's the suitable concept word for the subject of that sentence? Does that same concept word apply in other parts of the business? There's obviously much more than would be sensible to write here.<br />The major point being that when looking for your nouns, beware of those that are disguised verbs, and then attempt to construct sentences. If you don't know the language (or the language doesn't have that kind of a grammar), modeling gets much harder. For example me attempting to model from instructions written in Arabic.Chris Birdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13436436994311245922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-42296389935500633782009-06-20T10:26:05.122+01:002009-06-20T10:26:05.122+01:00It was not my intention to be "harsh" to...It was not my intention to be "harsh" to John. I've made it clear that I've also played the "find the nouns" game with my students, although with some further twists.<br /><br />My harshness is largely reserved for people who use fancy words (such as "reification" or "holism") without bothering to look them up on Wikipedia and find out what they actually mean. <br /><br />Again, Orwell is my guide here. In his essay <a href="http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html" rel="nofollow">Politics and the English Language</a> he attacks pretentious diction, and complains about a professor who "is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what it means".<br /><br />Elimination of pretentious diction is a good aim. Maybe I should call it Orwell's Razor.Richard Veryardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-80181282925279066032009-06-20T10:10:21.913+01:002009-06-20T10:10:21.913+01:00In an exchange on Twitter, John proposed the follo...In an exchange on Twitter, John proposed the following example:<br /><br />Function names begin with verb in the imperative "Sell Products and Services to Customers" gives three candidate entities.<br /><br />My response was that this function might equally have been called "Make Sales", with Sales as the only noun.<br /><br />John objected that "Make Sales" is a sparse name - does not describe what the function is all about - could not extract much information.<br /><br />I could have chosen a more elaborate function name - for example "Make Sales of Products and Services to Customers" - which would have contained more nouns. Or I could have included the extra information as adjectives - for example "Make Customer Product Sales". But the primary data entity still seems to be Sale, which was not visible in John's function name. <br /><br />Obviously if you already have a good function model, then the data entities are implicit. The function modeller chooses (by choice of function name) whether the primary data entity is going to be Sale or Customer. So John's procedure makes it seem that the function modeller is doing all the thinking, and the data modeller merely picking the nouns out of the function names.<br /><br />I have no doubt that his book provides a more nuanced approach than it is possible to state in a 140 character tweet. I should be delighted to receive a review copy.Richard Veryardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-2279056200481085612009-06-20T00:07:02.522+01:002009-06-20T00:07:02.522+01:00This comment was made in a Tweet on Twitter that l...This comment was made in a Tweet on Twitter that limited the context to 140 characters, so please do not be too harsh!! :-)<br /><br />The tweet said to START with the nouns but nouns on their own would give a very sparse data model - and what about the structure and the relationships?<br /><br />My full technique, which ensures that all of these can be realised, is described in detail my eBook IMM Data Structure Modelling available http://tinyurl.com/clsst6.<br /><br />The technique can be followed in detail or in principle depending on the experience of the analyst. It will always give quality results that ensures that the data model is directly linked to business functions and processes.John Owenshttp://www.integrated-modeling-method.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-14957880767144468132009-06-19T17:57:15.167+01:002009-06-19T17:57:15.167+01:00I agree. My own experience of the word was hearing...I agree. My own experience of the word was hearing Kim Cameron saying that Cardspace "reifies" digital credentials. What he meant was that it shows you pictures to represent otherwise abstract concepts... which is a fairly weak reading of the term.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com