Affecting meaning Subjectivity and evaluativity in gradable adjectives Mar´ıaIn´esCrespo Affecting meaning Subjectivity and evaluativity in gradable adjectives ILLC Dissertation Series DS-2015-01 For further information about ILLC-publications, please contact Institute for Logic, Language and Computation Universiteit van Amsterdam Science Park 107 1098 XG Amsterdam phone: +31-20-525 6051 e-mail: [email protected] homepage: http://www.illc.uva.nl/ These investigations were supported by the Nederlandse Wetenschappelijke Or- ganisatie (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) as part of the VAAG- project \Vagueness, approximation and granularity" (231-80-004). This project was a component of the EUROCORES Programme \Modelling Intelligent Inter- action - Logic in the Humanities, Social and Computational Sciences" coordinated by the European Science Foundation. The Amsterdam chapter of this consortium was led by Robert van Rooij. Copyright c 2015 by Mar´ıaIn´esCrespo Cover design by MIC. Cover art: detail from Drinking Boy (Taste) - Jongen met glas en tinnen kan, oil on panel painted by Frans Hals in Haarlem supposedly between 1626-1628, Galerie Alte & Neue Meister - Staatliches Museum Schwerin. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Printed and bound by GVO drukkers & vormgevers B.V. ISBN: 978-90-6464-886-1 Affecting meaning Subjectivity and evaluativity in gradable adjectives Academisch Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof.dr. D.C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op dinsdag 1 september 2015, te 10.00 uur door Mar´ıa In´esCrespo geboren te C´ordoba,Argentini¨e. Promotor: Prof. dr. M.J.B. Stokhof Universiteit van Amsterdam Promotor: Prof. dr. F.J.M.M. Veltman Universiteit van Amsterdam Co-promotor: Prof. dr. R.A.M. van Rooij Universiteit van Amsterdam Overige leden: Prof. dr. A. Betti Universiteit van Amsterdam Prof. dr. J.A.G. Groenendijk Universiteit van Amsterdam Prof. dr. M. van Lambalgen Universiteit van Amsterdam Prof. dr. L. McNally Universitat Pompeu Fabra Dr. C. Umbach ZAS Berlin Dr. F.A.I. Buekens Universiteit van Tilburg Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen A Santiago, mi hermano, quien me ense~n´oa leer. v Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background . .2 1.2 Research question and hypothesis . .5 1.3 Chapter overview and methodological notes . .7 1.4 Output . .9 2 Gradability, evaluativity, subjectivity 11 2.1 The menagerie of gradable adjectives . 12 2.2 Evaluativity in RGAs . 26 2.3 Subjectivity in RGAs . 31 2.4 Conclusion and work ahead . 40 3 Theories on gradability and on PPTs 41 3.1 Main approaches to gradability . 41 3.2 Main approaches to PPTs . 55 3.3 Judge-dependence, subjectivity, objectivity . 73 3.4 Conclusion and work ahead . 82 4 The epistemology of taste 85 4.1 Reflective judgement and the normativity of taste . 86 4.2 Certainty, subjectivity, intersubjectivity . 103 4.3 Conclusion: normativity without rules . 122 5 Intentionality for evaluative judgements 127 5.1 Disembodied intentionality . 129 5.2 A sketch of embodied intentionality . 138 5.3 Taking stock . 158 5.4 Conclusion and work ahead . 168 vii 6 Testing and tasting: a sketch of a model 169 6.1 Preliminary discussion . 170 6.2 Sketch of a model . 178 6.3 There is something here for everybody . 201 6.4 Conclusion and challenges ahead . 204 7 Conclusions and perspectives 209 A Logical connectives and first-order quantifiers 213 Bibliography 217 Samenvatting 237 Summary 243 viii Acknowledgments One of the main claims of these investigations is that subjectivity grows in the soil of interaction. Interacting with several people in the past years has had great impact on my work, on myself. For reasons of space, only a few names appear below. Many people I forgot to mention here have left traces on me as well. First of all, I thank my supervisors (the holy trinity). Each of them has had great influence on me. To Robert van Rooij, for his always challenging feedback, and for his deep and provoking teaching tone. To Frank Veltman, for his cheerful, intelligent, and direct style: Without his trust and help, I would have neither started nor finished this PhD. To Martin Stokhof, for letting me be his apprentice in the craft, for his attentive listening, and his wise guidance. He always helps me see the way out of the troubles I am in, or that I make for myself. Special thanks to Luis Urtubey, my mentor in Argentina, whose dialogue always makes me feel I have something meaningful to say. I wish to thank the people I have collaborated with these years. Raquel Fern´andezis sharp and critical, the best sparring partner I have had. Ariela Batt´anHorenstein is generous, patient, and she says the right thing at the right time. Erik Rietveld and Julian Kiverstein are demanding and experienced, skepti- cal and curious. Special thanks to Frank: he has been my teacher, my supervisor, and my co-author. In each role, he is friendly, cautious, and giving. During my short journey in Berkeley, I was surrounded by caring people. I thank Hannah Ginsborg for her time and teachings. Thanks to family Triest- Monrad, especially for their support during the hardest times, to Daisuke for his presence, and to Stanley Peters for his interest and advice. Amsterdam, Nijmegen, and Groningen gather many young and lucid philoso- phers. I wish to thank here those whose reactions had some bearing on this work: Chantal Bax, Sanneke de Haan, Johan Hartle, Pieter van der Kolk, and Chris- tian Skirke. Many thanks as well to Raquel, Galit W. Sassoon, Anna Nuspliger, Stefan Pliquett, Hannah, Ariela, and Chach´ınfor kindly agreeing to comment on chapters of this dissertation. Of course, all remaining errors are mine. ix I thank the ILLC, my niche for more than seven years, for always providing me with opportunities. In particular, I want thank Leen for his openness; Yde, for his honest and concernful character; Maria and Katrin, for their trust; Ingrid, Jenny, and Agaath, for their expertise and efficiency; and Tanja, Peter and Karine, for always being ready to help. I thank Benedikt for opening various doors; Ulle, for his rational and timely advice; and the PhD council, for allowing me to channel my concerns for our community. I enjoyed sharing office spaces with many colleagues along these years, I want to thank in particular Paul Dekker and Jaap Maat for their inspiring company. Thanks as well to the teachers I have worked with, and to my students in Logic, Philosophy, and AI. I have learnt a lot from them. A personal word of thanks to some my friends. Umbe has become part of my family, a fundamental piece. You know there is nothing we cannot achieve if we work together. Vlaler´ı,my officious sister and dear friend, thanks for being invariably close to me. Other friends I would like to thank here are: Alba, Ariela y Fabi´an,Cande, Carlos, Davide and Elin and Marije (super bedankt!), Fabi, Facu, Fede, Gideon, Gwen, Iris, Ivano, Maaike (van harte bedankt!), Mariel, Maryam, Gracia und Micha (ein ganz grosses Dankesch¨on!),Nina and Jakub, Raquel and Ulle, Sara and Vahid and Saba, Sanneke, Silvia, Sophia, Sumit, Sunil, Yurii, and Zo´e.To Katelijn, my yoga instructor, hartelijk bedankt. Argentineans have a rather extended conception of family. My cousins, aunts, and uncles are not mere relatives, they are really close to me. Gracias muy especiales a Gus, Bea, Salva, Sebas, Lucre, Nuni, Valen, Ann, Sergio y Angeles,´ Liliana, Maly, t´ıaSarita, Nina, Helena, Loli y Agustina. St´ephane'sfamily has been open and patient, merci beaucoup pour m'accueillir dans la famille. My parents and their spouses form a complex quartet, a loving family, my branching roots. Mam´a,pap´a,Juan, Silvia: son ustedes quienes me han ense~nadoque el afecto es lo que da sentido. Los quiero mucho. St´ephane,je ne serais pas arriv´eejusqu’`aici sans ton soutien, ton amour, ton sourire. Merci beaucoup. Tu es dans mon cœur. Paris M.I. (In´es)Crespo May, 2015 x Chapter 1 Introduction It is a well-known maxim that \in matters of taste, there can be no disputes". But it often happens that we disagree with others in matters of taste. A salient feature of such disputes is that they can be very hard to settle. Who is right concerning what is tasty, fun, or beautiful? It appears that no one has the upper hand because taste is, in some sense, subjective. In recent years, philosophers of language and linguists have turned their at- tention to these issues, in particular to how taste disputes can be phrased in conversation. The basic hunch is that if a judgement like This cake is tasty is subjective, this is most probably related to the adjective tasty (rather than to, e.g., the noun cake). Linguists have also noted that adjectives like long are sim- ilar to tasty in that, for instance, they all have a comparative form (we can say tastier, longer). These are known as gradable adjectives. Common to them as well is that long can also lead to disputes which are hard to resolve, e.g., when we disagree on whether a movie is long. Are tasty and long subjective in the same sense? Probably not. But then, do they have something in common and if so, what might that be? Another question, one that is somewhat worrisome, is this. If adjectives like tasty are subjective, how can we understand someone else say, e.g., This cake is tasty? If each of us has a different interpretation of the term tasty, then it seems that successful communication is impossible.