id: 05850285
dt: a
an: 05850285
au: Lassiter, Daniel
ti: Vagueness as probabilistic linguistic knowledge.
so: Nouwen, Rick (ed.) et al., Vagueness in communication. International
    workshop, ViC 2009, held as part of ESSLLI 2009, Bordeaux, France, July
    20‒24, 2009. Revised selected papers. Berlin: Springer (ISBN
    978-3-642-18445-1/pbk). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6517. Lecture
    Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 127-150 (2011).
py: 2011
pu: Berlin: Springer
la: EN
cc: 
ut: vagueness; probability; lexical representation; higher-order vagueness
ci: 
li: doi:10.1007/978-3-642-18446-8_8
ab: Summary: Consideration of the metalinguistic effects of utterances
    involving vague terms has led Barker [1] to treat vagueness using a
    modified Stalnakerian model of assertion. I present a sorites-like
    puzzle for factual beliefs in the standard Stalnakerian model [28] and
    show that it can be resolved by enriching the model to make use of
    probabilistic belief spaces. An analogous problem arises for
    metalinguistic information in Barker’s model, and I suggest that a
    similar enrichment is needed here as well. The result is a
    probabilistic theory of linguistic representation that retains a
    classical metalanguage but avoids the undesirable divorce between
    meaning and use inherent in the epistemic theory [34]. I also show that
    the probabilistic approach provides a plausible account of the sorites
    paradox and higher-order vagueness and that it fares well empirically
    and conceptually in comparison to leading competitors.
rv: