In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, an intersective modifier is an expression which
modifies another by delivering the
intersection
In mathematics, the intersection of two or more objects is another object consisting of everything that is contained in all of the objects simultaneously. For example, in Euclidean geometry, when two lines in a plane are not parallel, their i ...
of their
denotation
In linguistics and philosophy, the denotation of an expression is its literal meaning. For instance, the English word "warm" denotes the property of being warm. Denotation is contrasted with other aspects of meaning including connotation. For inst ...
s. One example is the English adjective "blue", whose intersectivity can be seen in the fact that being a "blue pig"
entails being both blue and a pig. By contrast, the English adjective "former" is non-intersective since a "former president" is neither former nor a president.
When a modifier is intersective, its contribution to the sentence's truth conditions do not depend on the particular expression it modifies. This means that one can test whether a modifier is intersective by seeing whether it gives rise to
valid reasoning patterns such as the following.
# Floyd is a Canadian surgeon.
# Floyd is an arsonist.
# ''Valid:'' Therefore Floyd is a Canadian arsonist.
With a non-intersective modifiers such as "skillful", the equivalent
deduction would not be valid.
# Floyd is a skillful surgeon.
# Floyd is an arsonist.
# ''Not valid:'' Therefore Floyd is a skillful arsonist.
Modifiers can be
ambiguous
Ambiguity is the type of meaning (linguistics), meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations wikt:plausible#Adjective, plausible. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It ...
, having both intersective and nonintersective interpretations. For instance, the example below has an intersective reading on which Oleg is both beautiful and a dancer, but it also has a merely
subsective reading on which Oleg dances beautifully but need not himself be beautiful.
# Oleg is a beautiful dancer.
On a textbook semantics for modification, an intersective modifier
denote
In linguistics and philosophy, the denotation of an expression is its literal meaning. For instance, the English word "warm" denotes the property of being warm. Denotation is contrasted with other aspects of meaning including connotation. For insta ...
s the set of individuals which have the property in question. When the modifier modifies a modifiee which also denotes a set of individuals, the resulting phrase denotes the intersection of their denotations.
#
#
Such meanings can be compositionality">composed
Composition or Compositions may refer to:
Arts and literature
*Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography
*Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...
either by introducing an interpretation rule ''Predicate Modification'' which hard-codes intersectivity. However, this mode of composition can also be delivered by standard ''Function Application'' if the modifier is given a higher
, either lexically or by applying a type shifter">type theory">semantic type, either lexically or by applying a type shifter.