Specificity and what is meant

Felicitous underspecification—apparently flawless use of context-sensitive words in contexts where they cannot be assigned unique semantic values—is rather common in ordinary speech. King presents a hypothesis about the mechanism conversational participants employ handling felicitous underspecificat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical studies 2024-11, Vol.181 (11), p.3181-3189
Main Author: Szabó, Zoltán Gendler
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Education
Epistemology
Ethics
Metaphysics
Philosophy
Philosophy of Language
Philosophy of Mind
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Summary:Felicitous underspecification—apparently flawless use of context-sensitive words in contexts where they cannot be assigned unique semantic values—is rather common in ordinary speech. King presents a hypothesis about the mechanism conversational participants employ handling felicitous underspecification, one that fits the rich data he surveys well. I will begin by illustrating how King’s account could be put to use in making sense of what happens in a real life conversation. Then I will point out certain shortcomings of the explanation and offer suggestions about how they might be overcome.
ISSN:0031-8116
1573-0883
DOI:10.1007/s11098-024-02175-x