Prof. Futrell introduces semantics, including: the distinction between sense and reference, the sense of a word, the reference of a word, and semantic relationships among words.
It seems that Professor Futrell concludes that the brain doesn't store dictionary definitions from the fact that dictionary definitions are circular. It's an issue rather of specific dictionaries than of the concept of dictionary definition. Mathematics doesn't contain definition cycles. Thus it's possible to eliminate definition cycles. Yes, mathematics contains a small number of notions which aren't defined, but are explained practically (in a proof writing class). There is a linguist who recognized the problem of definition cycles and tried to solve it in the mathematical way, Anna Wierzbicka.
15:27 brain has complex neural networks , Just one definition of word may be stored in tone different ways and associations ... We very easily understand a word but that word is processed intuitively parallel by unconscious mind.
Prof. Futrell, Excellent course! Question: Kurt Gödel said that either the rules of mathematics are incomplete but certain or complete but uncertain. I think he leaned toward mathematics being certain, but not fully capturable by rules. Do you, professor, see any similar situation occurring in the rules of language? In other words, do you find that the rules of language are never quite thorough enough to accommodate all aspects of a language, but yet, the language is perfectly understandable to those who know it: making it, in this sense, certain (i.e. the meaning is understood, barring some ambiguity) but not able to be quite contained within rules?
I would add that a common noun _can_ refer to just one thing instead of a set of things (like if there were only one cat in the world) but then you could say that that set has only one element and sets with one element are still sets.
