A case study of the semantics of clear - Vagueness

Following Barker (2002) and Barker and Taranto (2003), the solution to the paradox of asserting clarity involves adopting a delineation function that takes a situation and an adjective meaning and returns the vague standard for the adjective in the given situation. An introductory example is best used with a vague predicate that is easier to quantify than clarity. One such predicate is tall, which operates over a scale of height. Specifically, this predicate is concerned with maximal length on the vertical axis. A delineation function written to capture the meaning of tall as used in an utterance of (1a) is written as (1b), and its truth condition is expressed in (1c).

The truth condition in (1c) guarantees that the applicability of tall is evaluated with respect to Robinette’s maximal height.

 As explained in Barker (2002), sentences like (1a) have both descriptive and metalinguistic uses. In its descriptive use, tall provides information about the maximal length of an object with respect to the vertical axis and the conventionally accepted minimum standard for tallness. If in a situation the definition in (1b) returns a value of 6́ 0˝, an utterance of (1a) provides the information about the lower bound on how tall Robinette is, in this case, 6́ 0˝.

As an illustration of its metalinguistic use, imagine a situation in which a speaker and addressee know a lot about Robinette, including the maximal degree of his height, which is 6́            1˝. In contrast to our scenario to illustrate the descriptive use of tall, in this situation the standard for human tallness is more obscure. The discourse participants have their individual ideas about how tall a person needs to be to count as tall, but there is uncertainty about the conventional standard for height. In this case, a discourse like the one in (2) may occur.

Here, the addressee of (2b) has learned nothing new about Robinette by the information associated with the truth condition as expressed in (2c). However, the addressee has learned something about the prevailing standard for tallness. Specifically, it must be less than or equal to Robinette’s height. The discourse participants have learned something more about the meaning of the word tall, but nothing about Robinette’s physical properties. In this way, the use of tall in (2) is metalinguistic rather than descriptive.

As this analysis of vagueness is employed in the current study of the semantics of clear, the main idea is that different possible worlds may differ precisely in the standard they impose on a vague adjective. So in one world the absolute standard may be set higher or lower than it is in another world. One aspect that distinguishes the semantics of clear from the semantics of tall is that with clear the relevant scale is harder to identify. Instead of maximal height on the vertical axis, we’re interested in probability of a proposition being true based on an analysis of available evidence. With this in mind, the truth conditions of (3a) can be characterized as (3b).

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم حفظ النظام ينهي استعداداته الخاصة بحفل تخرج طالبات الجامعات العاشر

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تنشر أكاليل الزهور ومظاهر الفرح بمناسبة ذكرى ولادة أمير المؤمنين (عليه السلام)

مجمع الشيخ الكليني يواصل تحضيراته لاستقبال المشاركات في حفل تخرج طالبات الجامعات العاشر

وصول المشاركات في فعاليات مهرجان روح النبوة الثقافي النسوي العالمي الثامن إلى كربلاء

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

ماذا يحدث لجسمك عند تناول الوجبات السريعة يوميا؟

لصحة عظام المرأة.. الشاي أفضل أم القهوة؟

لبناء العضلات وإنقاص الوزن.. ما أفضل توقيت لتناول البيض؟

أطعمة صحية تساعد على التعافي من "الإنفلونزا الخارقة"

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

دراسة تكشف قدرة الحيتان على سماع الأصوات منخفضة وعالية التردد من مسافة بعيدة

تجربة جديدة: الأسفلت المدعوم بالطحالب يقاوم الحفر ويقلل الانبعاثات الكربونية

تسريبات تكشف ملامح أول هاتف قابل للطي من "أبل"

رصد نوع نادر من القطط في تايلاند للمرة الأولى منذ عقود

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Anaphora vs. deixis

Grammatical case vs. semantic case

Semantic roles and Grammatical Relations Conclusion

Arguments and semantic roles

Semantic roles and Grammatical Relations

Constituency

Identifying meaningful elements Summary

Identifying meaningful elements within words

Identifying meaningful elements Identifying word meanings

Consequences of modifying Gunlogsons 2001 model

A case study of the semantics of clear - Factivity revisited

A case study of the semantics of clear - The analysis