Open AccessThe distribution of controlled exhaustivity
Author(s) -
Mathieu Paillé
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings from semantics and linguistic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2163-5951
pISSN - 2163-5943
DOI - 10.3765/salt.v30i0.4831
Subject(s) - predicate (mathematical logic) , computer science , scope (computer science) , class (philosophy) , programming language , natural language processing , linguistics , artificial intelligence , philosophy
While predicates in taxonomies (e.g. colour terms) are interpreted as mutually incompatible, this paper shows that their incompatibility is in many cases not lexical. Rather, it is the result of a previously undescribed exhaustivity effect. What is more, this class of exhaustivity effects displays novel behaviour. Exhaustivity is both obligatory and tightly constrained: at first approximation, any taxonomic predicate must be in the immediate scope of the exhaustivity operator it requires. Taxonomic predicates, in this sense, are argued to "control" exhaustivity.