Against Lexical Self-Reference

This squib discusses a problem that arise when a standard degree-base semantic of intensifiers is combined with a second-orders contextualist semantics for the predicate average on its concrete reading. In a nutshell, the combination requires that the argument totally average be simultaneously avera...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Linguistic inquiry 2015-10, Vol.46 (4), p.742-754
Main Author: McCready, Eric
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Intensifiers
Meaning
Predicate
Reference (Semantic)
Semantics
Squibs and Discussion
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This squib discusses a problem that arise when a standard degree-base semantic of intensifiers is combined with a second-orders contextualist semantics for the predicate average on its concrete reading. In a nutshell, the combination requires that the argument totally average be simultaneously average in every respect and not average at all in one particular respect. This problem is claimed to arise from allowing the denotation of average to refer to itself; the problem is then solved by prohibiting self-reference at the lexical level.
ISSN:0024-3892
1530-9150
DOI:10.1162/LING_a_00200