Sex differences in certain cognitive abilities, including aspects of semantic processing, are well established. However, there have been no reports investigating a sex difference in semantic categorization. A total of 55 men and 58 women each judged 25 exemplars of natural categories (e.g., FRUITS) and 25 of artifact categories (e.g., TOOLS) as a nonmember, partial member, or full member of the...

This paper investigates the bodily signals of vagueness. After presenting the conceptual notion of vagueness by contrasting with uncertainty, approximation, confusion and ambiguity, the notion of “metadiscursive vagueness signal” is presented, a case of metadiscursive signals that convey “I am being vague”. Then a qualitative analysis of bodily signals of vagueness is presented, while singling ...

Vagueness is a common human knowledge and linguistic phenomenon, typically manifested by predicates that lack clear applicability conditions and boundaries such as High, Expert or Bad. In the context of ontologies and semantic data, the usage of such predicates within ontology element definitions (classes, relations etc.) can hamper the latter’s quality, primarily in terms of shareability and m...

This paper introduces a semantic model for vague quantifiers (VQs) combining Fuzzy Theory (FT) and Supervaluation Theory (ST), which are the two main theories on vagueness, a common source of uncertainty in natural language. After comparing FT and ST, I will develop the desired model and a numerical method for evaluating truth values of vague quantified statements, called the Modified Glöckner’...

2 Vagueness, Uncertainty and Fuzzy Logic 2 2.1 Vagueness and Uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2.2 Vagueness and Fuzzy Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.3 What Is Fuzzy Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.4 Agenda of Fuzzy Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

This paper deals with the generation of definite (i.e., uniquely referring) descriptions containing semantically vague expressions ('large', 'small', etc.). Firstly, the paper proposes a semantic analysis of vague descriptions that does justice to the contextdependent meaning of the vague expressions in them. Secondly, the paper shows how this semantic analysis can be implemented using a modifi...

In this paper I provide a different justification for a margin for error principle for vagueness centred on the idea of sorites susceptibility. This justification can provide an alternative basis for an epistemicist theory of vagueness, and, alternatively, could be used to ground a form of agnosticism about vagueness alternative and incompatible to Wright (2003b). I argue that we should prefer ...

Explicit density-dependence differs from density-vagueness in the sort of regulation imposed on populations. Explicit density-dependence implies regulation toward a central equilibrium point, whereas density-vagueness implies population change away from the two extremes of extinction and immense densities. Density-vagueness does not much concern regulation within the broad range of medial densi...

Current approaches in Digital .Humanities tend to ignore a central aspect of any hermeneutic introspection: the intrinsic vagueness of analyzed texts. Especially when dealing with historical documents neglecting vagueness has important implications on the interpretation of the results. In this paper we present current limitation of annotation approaches and describe a current methodology for an...