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4. Vagueness and context
4. Vagueness and Context
• Vague expressions can often not be interpreted without context
• We know (roughly) how to apply `tall` to a person. Roughly: Tall(x) Height(x) >> 170cm
• If we used the same standards for buildings as for people, than no building would ever be tall!
• Context-dependence allows us to associate one word with very different standards. Very efficient! (Cf. Barwise & Perry, “Situations and Attitudes”)
Variant of old example
[[animal]] = {a,...,k}
[[black]] = {a,b,c,d,e}[[cat]] = {a,b,f,g,h,i,j}
[[elephant]] = {c,d,e,k}
[[black cat]] = {a,b,c,d,e} {a,b,f,g,h,i,j} = {a,b}
[[small elephant]] = ?
[[small]] = ? Any answer implies that
x is a small elephant x is a small animal
Other types of vagueness are also context dependent
• [[many]] = how many?• [[(increase) rapidly]] = how rapidly?• temporal succession. Compare the time lags
between the events reported:
1. ``John entered the room. [..] He looked around.less than a second
2. ``Caesar came, [..] he saw, [..] he conquered``weeks or months
3. ``The ice retreated. [..] Plants started growing. [..] New species appeared.``many years