Aesthetic adjectives lack uniform behavior

The goal of this short paper is to show that esthetic adjectives—exemplified by “beautiful” and “elegant”—do not pattern stably on a range of linguistic diagnostics that have been used to taxonomize the gradability properties of adjectives. We argue that a plausible explanation for this puzzling dat...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Liao, Shen-yi, McNally, Louise, 1965-, Meskin, Aaron
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Data de publicação:2016
País:España
Recursos:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositório:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/32802
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/32802
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2016.1208927
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Aesthetic adjectives
Aesthetic concepts
Gradable adjectives
Predicates of personal taste
Experimental semantics
Experimental philosophy
Experimental philosophical aesthetics
Context
Comparison class
Descrição
Resumo:The goal of this short paper is to show that esthetic adjectives—exemplified by “beautiful” and “elegant”—do not pattern stably on a range of linguistic diagnostics that have been used to taxonomize the gradability properties of adjectives. We argue that a plausible explanation for this puzzling data involves distinguishing two properties of gradable adjectives that have been frequently conflated: whether an adjective’s applicability is sensitive to a comparison class, and whether an adjective’s applicability is context-dependent.