Positive understatement The logic of attributive adjectives

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1、I’.KITCHERPOSITIVECNDERSTATEMEST:THELOGICOFATTRIBUTIVEADJECTIVESThereisawell-knownlinguisticdisease,“hyperbolism”togiveitaname,whichconsistsinoverstatement.Oneformofthediseaseaffectstheuseofattributiveadjectives.Thetruehyperbolicemploysthepositiveformofadjectivesasfullyasconsistencywi

2、llallowhim.Formostofustherearenotonlybigfleasandlittlefleasbutalsofleaswhichareneitherbignorlittle.Butthehyperbolicfeelscompelledtodividethefleas,withoutremainder,intobigfleasandlittlefleas.Moregenerally,ifI:isthepositiveformofacomparative,FthepositiveformoftheconversecomparativeandGa

3、nypredicate,thehyperbolicinevitablypartitionstheclassofG’sintotheclassofFG’sandtheclassofFG’s.Justashyperboleisbalancedbyanoppositetrope,litotes,sotoothediseaseofhyperbolismcontrastswiththediseaseoflitotism.Attributiveadjectiveslendthemselvestoabusebylitoticsaswellasbyhyperbolics.Thea

4、pproachofthelitoticisalwaystowithholdthepositiveformofadjectives-hefindsnofleasbigenoughtobebigfleasnorsmallenoughtobesmallfleas.Ingeneral.foranypredicateCandanypositiveadjectiveF,hemain-tainsthattheclassofFG’sisempty.Anytheoryofattributiveadjectivesworthyofthenameshouldexposeboththeh

5、yperbolicandthelitoticaslinguisticdeviants.Ishalltrytoshowthatsuchperversepractices.inparticular,thepolicyofsystematicunder-statement,poseinterestinganddifficultproblemsforatheoryoflanguage.Logiciansandlinguistsalikeaimtouncoverthesemanticalrolesofexpressionswhichoccurintheintricateco

6、nstructionsofnaturallanguages.Recently,anumberofwritershaveurgedthatthegeneraltaskofuncoveringthesemanticalroleoftheconstituentsofasentenceSinvolves,atleastinpart.givingatheoryoftruthfor(fragmentsof)thelanguageinawaywhichJournalofPhilosophicalLogic7(1978)1-17.AllRightsReserved.Copyrig

7、ht01978byD.ReidelPublishingCompany,Dordrecht,Holland.2P.KITCHERrevealsthetruthconditionsforS.(Foraclassicstatementofthisidea,see[11).Thespecialcaseofattributiveadjectivesrequiresustoparaphrasesentencescontainingattributiveadjectivesinalanguageforwhichatheoryoftruthcanbegiven.Unfortuna

8、tely,