Vagueness and Language Use

This volume brings together twelve papers by linguists and philosophers contributing novel empirical and formal considerations to theorizing about vagueness. Three main issues are addressed: gradable expressions and comparison, the semantics of degree adverbs and intensifiers (such as 'clearly'), and ways of evading the sorites paradox.

Paul gr is a Research Fellow at Institut Jean-Nicod (CNRS) and a member of the Department of Cognitive Studies of the Ecole Normale Suprieure in Paris, France. His research interests include philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and epistemology. Paul gr is currently an associate editor of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology, the Journal of Philosophical Logic, and Disputatio. Nathan Klinedinst earned a PhD in linguistics from UCLA, and is now a Lecturer in linguistics at University College London. His areas of research interest are formal semantics and pragmatics, with a focus on conditionals and modality.

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: P.Égré & N.Klinedinst
PART I: MEASUREMENT AND COMPARISON
Vagueness and Scales; S.Fults
Implicit and Explicit Comparatives; R.van Rooij
Vagueness and Comparison; C.Kennedy
The Inhabitants of Vagueness Models; G.Sassoon
PART II: APPROXIMATORS AND INTENSIFIERS
Two Types of Vagueness; U.Sauerland & P.Stateva
Degree Modifiers and Monotonicity; R.Nouwen
Clarity as Objectivized Belief; A.Cohen & L.Wolf
Reasoning about Public Evidence; C.Barker
PART III: THE SORITES PARADOX
Supervaluationism and Fara's Argument concerning Higher-Order Vagueness; P.Cobreros
Truth in a Region; D.Fara
Vagueness and Practical Interest; P.Sweeney & E.Zardini
Vagueness and Domain Restriction; P.Pagin
Index