Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Prelude
- Part I Solutions to the Sorites Paradox
- Part II The Influence of the Sorites Paradox
- 10 The Sorites Paradox in Philosophy of Logic
- 11 The Sorites Paradox in Metaphysics
- 12 The Sorites Paradox in Practical Philosophy
- 13 The Sorites Paradox in Linguistics
- 14 The Sorites Paradox in Psychology
- Coda
- References
- Index
13 - The Sorites Paradox in Linguistics
from Part II - The Influence of the Sorites Paradox
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 September 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Prelude
- Part I Solutions to the Sorites Paradox
- Part II The Influence of the Sorites Paradox
- 10 The Sorites Paradox in Philosophy of Logic
- 11 The Sorites Paradox in Metaphysics
- 12 The Sorites Paradox in Practical Philosophy
- 13 The Sorites Paradox in Linguistics
- 14 The Sorites Paradox in Psychology
- Coda
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter outlines the impact of the Sorites Paradox in linguistics, with particular focus on its relation to semantic and pragmatic analyses of gradability and comparison. Section 2 describes the importance of philosophical work on vagueness and the Sorites Paradox for early attempts in linguistics to provide compositional analyses of the relation between positive and comparative adjectives. Section 3 then discusses subsequent linguistic analyses of these phenomena, and the extent to which they succeed or fail in providing isnights on vagueness and the Sorites Paradox. Section 4 explores the ways in which the Sorites Paradox has been used to uncover grammatically significant distinctions between classes of gradable predicates, and Section 5 concludes with a discussion of the connection between the Sorites Paradox and new lines of research geared towards understanding communication under semantic uncertainty.
Keywords
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- Information
- The Sorites Paradox , pp. 246 - 262Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019