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HIDDEN ARGUMENTS OF VISUAL PREDICATES
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2018-4-49-60
Predicates expressing visual properties, like ‘large’ and ‘larger’, constitute a special category of linguistic expressions. Whereas their meaning in most contexts seems to be uncontroversial, there are contexts where their meaning is hard to determine. Cross-world comparison is an instance. Its specific feature is that it compares an object taken in one possible world with an object taken in another one (distinct from the first one). In the paper, the problem of semantics of comparative visual predicates in the contexts of this type is examined. The problem can be illustrated using Russell’s famous example ‘I thought your yacht is larger than it is’. What makes this sentence problematic for semantic analysis is that an object as it was conceived by the speaker is being compared with that same object as it actually is. If we construe this sentence (as t suggest) as expressing a comparison of objects rather than their sizes, it is hard to see what the logical form of this sentence might be like. As a starting point, I take the uncontroversial claim that predicates like ‘large’ have a hidden argument, viz. a standard of being large for the contextually salient category of objects. I show that generalization of this point to comparative predicates like ‘larger’ enables us to solve the problem stated above. To this end, we have to distinguish a) between overt and hidden arguments of visual predicates, b) between an interpretation utilizing functions from objects to numbers, and an objectual interpretation, c) between immediate and mediated comparisons. I show that adopting the concept of comparative predicates having hidden arguments and the concept of cross-world visual comparisons as mediated by a hidden argument allows us to provide an intuitively correct objectual interpretation of cross-world visual comparisons.
Keywords: semantics, interpretation, logical form, predicate, visual property, contextuality, comparison, possible world, visual experience
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Issue: 4, 2018
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 49 — 60
Downloads: 522