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A pluralistic theory of wordhood
Author(s) -
Gasparri Luca
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12297
Subject(s) - epistemology , pluralism (philosophy) , natural (archaeology) , sociology , psychology , philosophy , history , archaeology
What are words and how should we individuate them? There are two main answers on the philosophical market. For some, words are bundles of structural–functional features defining a unique performance profile. For others, words are noneternal continuants individuated by their causal‐historical ancestry. These conceptions offer competing views of the nature of words, and it seems natural to assume that at most one of them can capture the essence of wordhood. This paper makes a case for pluralism about wordhood: The view that there is a plurality of acceptable conceptions of the nature of words, none of which is uniquely entitled to inform us as to what wordhood consists in.