II - The last dogma of type confusions

In this paper I discuss a certain kind of 'type confusion' which involves use of expressions of the wrong grammatical category, as in the string 'runs eats'. It is (nearly) universally accepted that such strings are meaningless. My purpose in this paper is to question this widesp...

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Main Author: Magidor, O
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2009
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author Magidor, O
author_facet Magidor, O
author_sort Magidor, O
collection OXFORD
description In this paper I discuss a certain kind of 'type confusion' which involves use of expressions of the wrong grammatical category, as in the string 'runs eats'. It is (nearly) universally accepted that such strings are meaningless. My purpose in this paper is to question this widespread assumption (or as I call it, 'the last dogma'). I discuss a range of putative reasons for accepting the last dogma: in §II, semantic and metaphysical reasons; in §III, logical reasons; and in §IV, syntactic reasons. I argue that none of these reasons is conclusive, and that consequently we should be willing to question this last dogma of type confusions. © 2009 The Aristotelian Society.
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spelling oxford-uuid:1052318c-1045-43a0-82a5-8bb80b56d6b92022-03-26T09:55:47ZII - The last dogma of type confusionsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:1052318c-1045-43a0-82a5-8bb80b56d6b9EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2009Magidor, OIn this paper I discuss a certain kind of 'type confusion' which involves use of expressions of the wrong grammatical category, as in the string 'runs eats'. It is (nearly) universally accepted that such strings are meaningless. My purpose in this paper is to question this widespread assumption (or as I call it, 'the last dogma'). I discuss a range of putative reasons for accepting the last dogma: in §II, semantic and metaphysical reasons; in §III, logical reasons; and in §IV, syntactic reasons. I argue that none of these reasons is conclusive, and that consequently we should be willing to question this last dogma of type confusions. © 2009 The Aristotelian Society.
spellingShingle Magidor, O
II - The last dogma of type confusions
title II - The last dogma of type confusions
title_full II - The last dogma of type confusions
title_fullStr II - The last dogma of type confusions
title_full_unstemmed II - The last dogma of type confusions
title_short II - The last dogma of type confusions
title_sort ii the last dogma of type confusions
work_keys_str_mv AT magidoro iithelastdogmaoftypeconfusions