When vague sentences inform: A model of assertability

Synthese 124 (2):175-191 (2000)
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Abstract

A speaker often decides whether or not to saysomething based on his assessment of the impact itwould have on his hearer's beliefs. If he thinks itwould bring them more in line with the truth, he saysit; otherwise he does not. In this paper, I developa model of these judgments, focusing specifically onthose of vague sentences. Under the simplifyingassumption that an utterance only conveys a speaker'sapplicability judgments, I present a Bayesian model ofan utterance's impact on a hearer's beliefs. Fromthis model I derive a model of a speaker's judgment ofwhether or not an utterance would be informative. Iillustrate it with several examples of judgments ofvague and non-vague sentences. For instance, I showthat it models the common judgment that assertingeither ``George is tall'' or ``George is not tall'' wouldbe misleading if George were borderline tall, butasserting ``George is tall and he isn't tall'' would notbe.

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References found in this work

Meaning and grammar: an introduction to semantics.Gennaro Chierchia & Sally McConnell-Ginet - 2000 - Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Edited by Sally McConnell-Ginet.
The logic of inexact concepts.J. A. Goguen - 1969 - Synthese 19 (3-4):325-373.
Vagueness. An exercise in logical analysis.Max Black - 1937 - Philosophy of Science 4 (4):427-455.
Vagueness. An Exercise in Logical Analysis.Max Black - 1938 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 3 (1):48-49.

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