Constitution as Promise contends that constitutions are sets of promises. As such, it argues that they must be interpreted in a living constitutionalist manner. Chapter One argues that constitutions meet the analytic criteria to be considered promises. It is argued that constitutions are expressions of the intention of a government to bind itself to a set of principles. Absent this expression, citizens lack assurance of the protection of their rights and legal recourse when their rights are violated. Chapter Two considers the use of promise in contract theory and investigates its viability in constitutional theory. Some theories of contract are skeptical of promise as a basis for contract. The chapter argues that while promise may be an inadequate moral underpinning for the law of contract, it is apt for the law of constitutions. Chapter Three notes that constitutions are sets of vague promises. Vague promises ought not be interpreted solely in accordance with the intentions of promisors or promisees. Traditional forms of originalism contend that constitutions should be interpreted according to the intentions of their framers. So, constitution as promise rules out traditional forms of originalism. Chapter Four considers the positive consequences of constitution as promise. It argues that vague promises ought to be interpreted through a negotiation process between promisor and promisee. This negotiation should consider what moral reasoning reveals about the promise’s terms, the context in which the promise was uttered, the capacities and competing obligations of the promisor, and the expectations of the promisee. To properly consider these factors, the chapter maintains that the negotiation must occur on a case-by-case basis, incrementally specifying the promise’s terms. The chapter then notes the similarities between this negotiation process and the interpretive suggestions of living constitutionalism. It concludes that living constitutionalism is entailed by the promissory nature of constitutions. / Thesis / Master of Philosophy (MA) / Constitution as Promise investigates the interpretive consequences of conceptualizing constitutions as promises from governments to citizens. It first argues that constitutions satisfy the criteria to be considered promises. It then maintains that the morality of promising is apt for application to constitutional law. In the third and fourth chapters, it considers how one ought to interpret vague promises. Vague promises, it argues, should be interpreted incrementally, on a case-by-case basis. The promisor and the promisee must come to an agreement about what their vague promise requires, as new cases arise. When they cannot agree, promisor and promisee need an adjudicator. Since constitutions are sets of vague promises, they must also be interpreted incrementally, on a case-by-case basis and require adjudication where agreement is impossible. Constitution as Promise concludes that the only available interpretive theory that is sensitive to constitution’s nature as vague promise is living constitutionalism. As such, constitutions ought to be interpreted in a living constitutionalist manner.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Many theories of vagueness employ question-begging assumptions about the semantic boundaries between truth and falsity. This thesis defends a theory of vagueness put forward by Charles S. Peirce and argues for a novel solution to the sorites paradox based upon his work. Contrary to widespread opinion, I argue that Peirce distinguished borderline vagueness from other related forms of indeterminacy, e.g. indefiniteness, generality, unspecificity, uninformativity, etc. By clarifying Peirce’s conception of borderline vagueness, I argue for a solution to the sorites paradox based upon his logical semantics. In addition, I argue for this theory against the epistemic theory of vagueness, which makes controversial claims concerning the sharp semantic boundary between truth and falsity, and against the supervaluationist theory of vagueness, which is committed to the in principle impossibility of sharp semantics boundaries for propositions with vague terms.

This study investigates the types, frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters employed in L1 and L2 argumentative paragraphs written by Turkish learners of English with pre-intermediate level of proficiency. It aims to uncover whether or not Turkish learners of English writing in L1 and L2 display any transfer in their employment of hedges and boosters. The extent to which the academic writing teaching materials result in any measurable change in the employment of hedges and boosters is also pursued. To this end, the data that is comprised of 104 (52 Turkish and 52 English) argumentative paragraphs written as a response to a TOEFL essay prompt are collected. The analysis of the data is done manually and each paragraph is coded and formatted in CLAN CHILDES. Later, PASW is used to run the descriptive statistics and calculate the frequency and percentages of hedges and boosters. The results show that the types, frequencies, and meanings of hedges and boosters are culture and language-specific and they are topic and genre dependent. Research v findings also reveal that the participants in this study often express appropriate degree of certainty and pragmatic vagueness while writing in L1 and L2. However, there are some cases in which the evidence of rhetorical transfer are observed with respect to functions of certain hedges. The findings further indicate that there is a parallelism between the teaching materials used in academic writing classes and the types, frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters produced in L2 paragraphs.

This dissertation provides experimental evidence for the validity of an intonational phonology. The widely used Autosegmental-Metrical theory con- tends that the phonological structure of intonation can be expressed with two tonal targets (L/H tones and derivatives) and retrieved from its phonetic im- plementations. However, it has not been specifically demonstrated so far in a systematic way. This dissertation argues that this view on intonational phonol- ogy considers the phonetic forms of intonation as instances of phonologically structured intonational units forming functionally discrete categories (tones and derivatives). The model of Pattern Recognition for Intonation (PRInt) applies the concepts of categorization (vagueness, prototype, degrees of typicality) to in- tonation in order to abstract the phonological structure of intonational cate- gories from the ranking, by degree of typicality, of their variations in phonetic implementation. First, instances belonging to an intonation category are collected. Sec- ond, a pattern recognition module, relying on the 4-layer structure protocol, extracts a feature vector from the phonetic data of each instance: a sequence of structurally organized tones (L/H tones and derivatives). Third, a fuzzy classifier, using two functions (frequency and similar- ity), organizes the data from the feature vectors of all instances by degree of typicality (grade of membership of values in multisets) and generates the phonological structure of the intonation category, the prototypical pattern, ex- tracted from all instances, and that subsumes them all. It also re-creates the phonetic implementations of the phonological structure but with their features ranked by degree of typicality. This allows the model to distinguish phono- logically distinct structures from phonetic variations of the same phonological structure. The model successfully extracted the phonological intonation structure associated to three modalities of closed questions in French: neutral, doubt- ful, and surprised. It found that neutral and doubtful closed questions are phonologically distinct while surprise is a phonetic allocontour of the neutral modality, in line with prior characterizations of these patterns. It demon- strated that a bi-tonal phonological structure of intonation can be retrieved from phonetic variations. A versatile modeling tool, PRInt will be developed to use its acquired knowledge to evaluate the categorical status of novel instances and to extract multiple phonological units from mixed corpora. / text

Lexical vagueness is a ubiquitous phenomenon in natural language. Most of previous works in natural language processing (NLP) consider lexical ambiguity as the main problem in natural language understanding rather than lexical vagueness. Lexical vagueness is usually considered as a solution rather than a problem in natural language understanding since precise information is usually failed to be provided in conversations. However, lexical vagueness is obviously an obstacle in human robot interaction (HRI) since the robots are expected to precisely understand their users' utterances in order to provide reliable services to their users. This research aims to develop novel lexical vagueness handling techniques to enable service robots to precisely understand their users' utterance so that they can provide the reliable services to their users. A novel integrated system to handle lexical vagueness is proposed in this research based on an in-depth understanding of lexical ambiguity and lexical vagueness including why they exist, how they are presented, what differences are in between them, and the mainstream techniques to handle lexical ambiguity and lexical vagueness. The integrated system consists of two blocks: the block of lexical ambiguity handling and the block of lexical vagueness handling. The block of lexical ambiguity handling first removes syntactic ambiguity and lexical ambiguity. The block of lexical vagueness handling is then used to model and remove lexical vagueness. Experimental results show that the robots endowed with the developed integrated system are able to understand their users' utterances. The reliable services to their users, therefore, can be provided by the robots.

This thesis consists of several independent papers in population ethics. I begin in Chapter 1 by critiquing some well-known 'impossibility theorems', which purport to show there can be no intuitively satisfactory population axiology. I identify axiological vagueness as a promising way to escape or at least mitigate the effects of these theorems. In particular, in Chapter 2, I argue that certain of the impossibility theorems have little more dialectical force than sorites arguments do. From these negative arguments I move to positive ones. In Chapter 3, I justify the use of a 'veil of ignorance', starting from three more basic normative principles. This leads to positive arguments for various kinds of utilitarianism - the best such arguments I know. But in general the implications of the veil depend on how one answers what I call 'the risky existential question': what is the value to an individual of a chance of non-existence? I chart out the main options, and raise some puzzles for non-comparativism, the view that life is incomparable to non-existence. Finally, in Chapter 4, I consider the consequences for population ethics of the idea that what is normatively relevant is not personal identity, but a degreed relation of psychological connectedness. In particular, I pursue a strategy based in population ethics for understanding the controversial 'time-relative interests' account of the badness of death.

The aim of this paper is to analyze Wittgenstein’s philosophical grammar in the Middle Period. The paper examines the thesis that grammar is not responsible for reality. It investigates the role that rules play in this context and how they determine meaning. Special focus shall be put on arbitrary rules. Therefore, we shall develop a thesis of vagueness with special emphasis on perspicuous representation. / Este trabajo analiza la propuesta wittgensteiniana acerca de la gramática filosófica en el período intermedio. Se estudia la tesis general de que la gramática no es responsable de la realidad. Seguidamente, se analiza el papel que juegan las reglas y cómo determinan el significado. Se indaga acerca del papel arbitrario de las reglas. Para ello se desarrolla la tesis de la vaguedad y el papel que juega la representación perspicua.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O objetivo principal deste trabalho é estudar estratégias de indeterminação de sentido em um corpus de conversas telefônicas interceptadas, considerando que a produção de sentido é um processo cognitivo dependente do contexto. Delimitamos a linguística cognitiva como a área na qual essa pesquisa se encontra inserida, para melhor compreender os fundamentos e os pressupostos norteadores da Teoria dos Modelos Cognitivos Idealizados (TMCI) e da Teoria da Mesclagem Conceptual (blending), tendo como base, principalmente, os estudos de Lakoff (1987), Fauconnier (1997) e Fauconnier e Turner (2002). No decorrer do trabalho propomo-nos responder às seguintes questões de pesquisa: a) que estratégias de indeterminação de sentido são mais frequentemente usadas nestas conversas? b) que elementos do contexto e do cotexto permitem a delimitação do sentido do item lexical em determinada conversa? c) como funcionam, no corpus, as estratégias de indeterminação de sentido e de que forma elas contribuem para sustentar determinado tipo de relação interpessoal? Para responder a estas questões de pesquisa, das 22 gravações de conversas telefônicas de atores sociais envolvidos com tráfico de armas e drogas, sequestro e extorsão, fornecidas pela Coordenadoria de Segurança e Inteligência do Ministério Público do Rio de Janeiro, selecionamos 10 conversas, em função da sua qualidade sonora, para serem transcritas e para proceder à análise qualitativa do uso da polissemia e da vagueza lexical. A partir das discussões teóricas e das análises desenvolvidas, concluímos que a polissemia representa a estratégia de indeterminação de sentido mais frequente no corpus desta pesquisa e que a mesma pode ser entendida como um processo de mesclagem conceptual, que sofre influências sociais e culturais: é a dinamicidade do pensamento e da linguagem que geram a polissemia. Concluímos também que a vagueza lexical é utilizada, no corpus, como um recurso linguístico para referência a assuntos ilícitos. Os itens lexicais analisados instanciam esquemas mentais abstratos que têm seus sentidos realizados a partir de pistas linguísticas e extralinguísticas que apontam para um processo interacional que pode ser entendido como um enquadre de transações comerciais (tráfico de drogas) / The main objective of this research is to study strategies of indeterminacy of meaning in a corpus of intercepted telephone conversations by social actors involved with the trafficking of drugs and weapons, with kidnapping and extortion. We elected Cognitive Linguistics as the area in which this research should be developed, as we understand the process of meaning production as a cognitive process, dependent on the context. Within Cognitive Linguistics, we adopted the principles and assumptions guiding the Theory of Idealized Cognitive Models (TMCI) and Conceptual Blending Theory, based principally on studies by Lakoff (1987), Fauconnier (1997) and Fauconnier and Turner (2002). Throughout the paper our purpose is to answer the following research questions: a) what strategies for the indeterminacy of meaning are most often used in these conversations? b) what elements of context and co-text (the immediate grammatical context ) trigger the instantiation of the meaning of a lexical item in a particular conversation? c) how do the strategies of indetermination of meaning operate , in the corpus, and how do they contribute to the creation of a particular kind of interpersonal relationship? In order to answer these questions, from the 22 recordings provided by the Coordinator of Intelligence and Security of the Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro, we selected 10 conversations, on the basis of their sound quality. We further transcribed them and submitted them to qualitative analysis, investigating the use of lexical polysemy and vagueness. From the theoretical discussions and analyzes undertaken, we conclude that polysemy represents the strategy of indeterminacy of meaning that is most often used in the corpus and that it can be understood as a process of conceptual blending, under the influence of social and cultural factors: it is the association between the use of language and the real dynamics of thought and language that generate polysemy. We also conclude that lexical vagueness is used as a language resource to refer to illicit affairs. The lexical items studied instantiate abstract mental schemas whose meanings are triggered by the use of particular linguistic and extralinguistic cues, within the domain, or frame, of a commercial transaction (drug trafficking)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O objetivo principal deste trabalho é estudar estratégias de indeterminação de sentido em um corpus de conversas telefônicas interceptadas, considerando que a produção de sentido é um processo cognitivo dependente do contexto. Delimitamos a linguística cognitiva como a área na qual essa pesquisa se encontra inserida, para melhor compreender os fundamentos e os pressupostos norteadores da Teoria dos Modelos Cognitivos Idealizados (TMCI) e da Teoria da Mesclagem Conceptual (blending), tendo como base, principalmente, os estudos de Lakoff (1987), Fauconnier (1997) e Fauconnier e Turner (2002). No decorrer do trabalho propomo-nos responder às seguintes questões de pesquisa: a) que estratégias de indeterminação de sentido são mais frequentemente usadas nestas conversas? b) que elementos do contexto e do cotexto permitem a delimitação do sentido do item lexical em determinada conversa? c) como funcionam, no corpus, as estratégias de indeterminação de sentido e de que forma elas contribuem para sustentar determinado tipo de relação interpessoal? Para responder a estas questões de pesquisa, das 22 gravações de conversas telefônicas de atores sociais envolvidos com tráfico de armas e drogas, sequestro e extorsão, fornecidas pela Coordenadoria de Segurança e Inteligência do Ministério Público do Rio de Janeiro, selecionamos 10 conversas, em função da sua qualidade sonora, para serem transcritas e para proceder à análise qualitativa do uso da polissemia e da vagueza lexical. A partir das discussões teóricas e das análises desenvolvidas, concluímos que a polissemia representa a estratégia de indeterminação de sentido mais frequente no corpus desta pesquisa e que a mesma pode ser entendida como um processo de mesclagem conceptual, que sofre influências sociais e culturais: é a dinamicidade do pensamento e da linguagem que geram a polissemia. Concluímos também que a vagueza lexical é utilizada, no corpus, como um recurso linguístico para referência a assuntos ilícitos. Os itens lexicais analisados instanciam esquemas mentais abstratos que têm seus sentidos realizados a partir de pistas linguísticas e extralinguísticas que apontam para um processo interacional que pode ser entendido como um enquadre de transações comerciais (tráfico de drogas) / The main objective of this research is to study strategies of indeterminacy of meaning in a corpus of intercepted telephone conversations by social actors involved with the trafficking of drugs and weapons, with kidnapping and extortion. We elected Cognitive Linguistics as the area in which this research should be developed, as we understand the process of meaning production as a cognitive process, dependent on the context. Within Cognitive Linguistics, we adopted the principles and assumptions guiding the Theory of Idealized Cognitive Models (TMCI) and Conceptual Blending Theory, based principally on studies by Lakoff (1987), Fauconnier (1997) and Fauconnier and Turner (2002). Throughout the paper our purpose is to answer the following research questions: a) what strategies for the indeterminacy of meaning are most often used in these conversations? b) what elements of context and co-text (the immediate grammatical context ) trigger the instantiation of the meaning of a lexical item in a particular conversation? c) how do the strategies of indetermination of meaning operate , in the corpus, and how do they contribute to the creation of a particular kind of interpersonal relationship? In order to answer these questions, from the 22 recordings provided by the Coordinator of Intelligence and Security of the Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro, we selected 10 conversations, on the basis of their sound quality. We further transcribed them and submitted them to qualitative analysis, investigating the use of lexical polysemy and vagueness. From the theoretical discussions and analyzes undertaken, we conclude that polysemy represents the strategy of indeterminacy of meaning that is most often used in the corpus and that it can be understood as a process of conceptual blending, under the influence of social and cultural factors: it is the association between the use of language and the real dynamics of thought and language that generate polysemy. We also conclude that lexical vagueness is used as a language resource to refer to illicit affairs. The lexical items studied instantiate abstract mental schemas whose meanings are triggered by the use of particular linguistic and extralinguistic cues, within the domain, or frame, of a commercial transaction (drug trafficking)

Cette thèse vise à rendre compte conjointement des jugements de valeurs de vérité non-bivalents, c'est-à-dire des jugements ne correspondant ni à « Vrai » ni à « Faux », déclenchés par des phrases présuppositionnelles (telles que 1 en contexte où Oscar n'est pas français), vagues (telles que 2 en contexte où Oscar est de taille moyenne) ou encore hybrides (telles que 3 en contexte où l'interlocuteur est de taille moyenne).1. Oscar a réalisé que tu es français.2. Oscar est vieux.3. Oscar a réalisé que tu es vieux.Sur la base de systèmes logiques définissant trois valeurs de vérité (vrai, faux et autre) proposés dans la littérature sur le vague tout comme dans la littérature sur la présupposition, j'élabore dans un premier temps un système à cinq valeurs de vérité ordonnées, qui définit ainsi trois paliers intermédiaires entre le vrai et le faux.Suite à l'obtention de résultats expérimentaux incompatibles avec les prédictions de ce système, je propose dans un deuxième temps un système à quatre valeurs de vérité non ordonnées, compatible avec les résultats et qui place cette fois le vague et la présupposition sur des dimensions distinctes. Une expérience menée avec Paul Égré établit par ailleurs que les locuteurs rejettent systématiquement des descriptions contradictoires comme « vieux et jeune », mais qu'ils peuvent accepter des descriptions contradictoires comme "ni vieux ni jeune", "ni veux ni pas vieux" et "vieux et pas vieux". Ces résultats confortent l'idée qu'une phrase vague comme 1 peut être jugée "Ni vraie ni fausse" mais aussi "Vraie et fausse", et nous permettent de discriminer entre deux approches concurrentes de l'antonymie adjectivale. / The aim of my thesis is to give a uniform account of non-bivalent truth-value judgments induced by presuppositional expressions and by vague expression (namely judgments other than "True" or "False"). For example, a presuppositional sentence like 1 below is typically judged neither true nor false in a context where Oscar is not French, and a vague sentence like 2 is also reported as neither true or nor false in a context where Oscar is of an average height. The same holds of a hybrid sentence like 3, combining a vague adjective and a presuppositional expression, in a context where the interlocutor is of an average height:1. Oscar has realized that you are French.2. Oscar is old.3. Oscar has realized that you are old. Abstract:Drawing on systems defining three logical values (true, false and other) and discussed both in the literature on vagueness and in the literature on presupposition, I propose a system with five totally ordered values, thereby defining three intermediate levels between true and false.After collecting experimental data conflicting with the predictions of this system, I propose a system with four values which is compatible with the experimental results and where the four values are partially ordered along a dimension specific to vagueness and along a dimension specific to presupposition.To get further insights about truth-value judgments specific to vagueness, I conducted another set of experiments (in collaboration with Paul Égré), showing that speakers systematically reject contradictory descriptions of the form "old and young" but that they can accept contradictory descriptions of the form "neither old nor young", "neither old nor not old" and "old and not old". These results echo the idea that vague sentences like 1 can be judged "Neither true nor false" but also "True and false", and allow us to discriminate between two competing theories of adjectival antonyms.