>
> >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! :-)
>
Tell me, then, what can your hand do that your body cannot?
Of course, your hand can do things your liver cannot, and
vice versa, but your whole body can do anything that either of
them can do separately.
If you separate the hand from the body, it can do nothing. It is
just a part of the whole.
And why would you want to buy a jacket for your hand as opposed
to a glove?
Since formal language was derived from natural language, it is thus
a part of it, and therefore a subset.
Grant