María Inés Crespo

Doctoral project abstract

Natural languages feature vague expressions, i.e., linguistic constructions of various sorts with properties such as the presence of borderline cases, susceptibility to sorites paradoxes, and a standard-sensitive context dependency. Our research will focus in particular on 'regular' gradable adjectives (like 'tall', 'heavy', 'expensive', 'full', etc.) and on predicates of personal taste. Other sorts of vague linguistic phenomena will be considered as contrast classes for our findings.

Formal semantics and philosophy (among other disciplines) try to explain, predict, or unravel the family of felicity judgments regarding sentences --- or sequences thereof --- containing these vague constructions. Judgments of (in)felicity and (non-)inference appear to show a peculiar kind of semantic normativity in these kinds of vague expressions.

In our research, we propose to address the following questions:

(1) Does the semantic normativity of on 'regular' gradable adjectives, and on predicates of personal, taste have characteristic features?

(2) What could be a source of the semantic normativity of these classes of vague expressions?

Master research (MSc in Logic, ILLC - University of Amsterdam)

"Normativity and interaction: from ethics to semantics", supervised by prof. dr. Martin Stokhof. (Listed under Publications.)

Undergraduate research (Licenciatura - BA - in Philosophy, specialised in logic and epistemology, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba)

"Contextual approaches to the truth predicate", supervised by prof. dr. Luis A. Urtubey. (Listed under Publications.)

Membership to research teams

2010-1
Vagueness, Approximation, and Granularity (VAAG) project, part of the ESF LogICCC programme. Directors: Dr Robert van Rooij, prof. dr Frank Veltman.

2007-11
Research project: “Classical and alternative logico-philosophical justifications in precise and approximate reasoning. New models for non-standard inference, visualization and formal ontologies”, National Agency of Scientific and Technologic Promotion, Min, of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation. PICT-2007-01606. Director: Prof. Dr. Horacio Faas.

2006-7
Research project: “Contextual accounts in logic, ontologies and multi-agent systems”, Secretary of Science and Technology, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba: member of research team. Res. SeCyT 162/06. Director: Prof. dr. Luis A. Urtubey.

2004-5
Research project: “Logics for contextual reasoning, multiple agents and vagueness”, Secretary of Science and Technology, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC): member of research team. Res. SeCyT 197/05. Director: Prof. dr. Luis A. Urtubey.