Abstract
This paper has two aims. The first is to provide a characterization of evaluative predicates (‘good’, ‘horrible’, ‘beautiful’). The second is to explain how ordinary predicates, such as ‘intense’ or ‘insane’, may be used evaluatively, and how they convey sometimes a positive and sometimes a negative evaluation, depending on the context. I propose a semantic account, which, in a nutshell, relies on the fact that evaluative predicates are typically multidimensional adjectives, and that the choice, as well as the respective weights of the relevant dimensions, may vary with the context. Thus in a context in which a negative dimension has been brought to salience, the overall evaluation carried by the use of the predicate will likely be negative; mutatis mutandis for the positive case. The paper ends with a comparison between this approach and the pragmatic approach, and suggests that rather than compete, the two complement each other.
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Notes
- 1.
While all multidimensional adjectives are felicitous with the construction “in every/most/some respect”, only a subclass of multidimensional adjectives – namely, the so-called conjunctive ones – are required to be felicitous with “except for”. In this sense, the fact that an adjective cannot be felicitously used with “except for” is not yet evidence that it is not multidimensional (see [12] for discussion). It should also be added that these felicity criteria are indicative rather than conclusive. In particular, “except for” can be understood as referring to a part of the object that fails to instantiate the property, enhancing the felicity of sentences such as sentence (9) below (note though that the part-exception reading fails for (10), because ‘tall’ does not apply to parts of a body). Also, “in every respect” may be coerced into a metalinguistic reading, giving rise to puns such as “The titles of this newspaper are bold in every respect”.
- 2.
It is worth noting that it is not only action movies for which it may be a good thing that they should be harrowing. Interestingly, Haneke's drama Amour is also described as “harrowing, intense and thrilling” in a review by Blake Howard: http://www.graffitiwithpunctuation.net/2012/06/11/amour/.
- 3.
The negative use of ‘intense’ is illustrated by the following example, adapted from http://www.culturedvultures.com/did-you-know-eric-stoltz-is-still-in-back-to-the-future/: “Any self-proclaimed movie buff will be able to tell you of a time when Eric Stoltz was Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Coming across as intense and not really suited to the role, director Robert Zemeckis took the steps to replace him with Michael J. Fox.” Thanks to Michael Murez for pointing this example out to me.
- 4.
Let me stress that what we are looking for are two contexts in which one and the same acting is correctly described as intense, yet in one the evaluation conveyed is positive and in the other it is negative. This is why the “objective” position of Hardy's acting on the different dimensions needs to be kept fixed.
- 5.
Both uses are so systematic that many dictionaries posit two senses for ‘audacious’, one more positive and one more negative. E.g. The definition on Google: 1. showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks; 2. showing an impudent lack of respect. The definition in Webster: 1. having or exhibiting an unabashed or fearless spirit; 2. presumptuous; shameless, insolent. It is important to realize, however, that even if we restrict the interpretation to one sense only (say, the first), the valence may still vary with the context.
- 6.
This may be disputed. More generally, one’s stance regarding this issue will depend on how one thinks about the semantics-pragmatics interface. In [16], I urge to make room for the idea that there are aspects of meaning which are not semantic, but are not full-fledgedly pragmatic either. This could be a case at point.
- 7.
Earlier versions of this material have been presented at the 8th Latin Meeting in Milan, Italy (4 June 2015), at the 3rd Workshop on Semantic Content and Conversational Dynamics in Barcelona, Spain (30 June 2015), at the conference Context-Relativity in Semantics in Salzburg, Austria (3 July 2015), at Philosophy of Language and Linguistics in Dubrovnik, Croatia (9 September 2015), at the Mind and Language Seminar in Paris, France (23 September 2015), and especially, at the conference LENLS-12 in Tokyo, Japan (17 November 2015). I am grateful to the audiences at these events for helpful comments and feedback, and more particularly to Alain Pé-Curto, who commented on my paper at the Milan meeting. I would also like to acknowledge support from the following projects: MINECO FFI2016-80636-P, ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC, ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL and Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant nb. 675415.
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Stojanovic, I. (2017). Evaluative Predicates and Evaluative Uses of Ordinary Predicates. In: Otake, M., Kurahashi, S., Ota, Y., Satoh, K., Bekki, D. (eds) New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. JSAI-isAI 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10091. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50953-2_11
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