The dynamics of subjectivity

Abstract

I adapt the dynamic framework for vagueness of Barker 2002 to the analysis of subjective taste predicates. I argue, following Kennedy 2013, that there are two qualitatively distinct types of subjectivity in natural language, which I call mapping subjectivity and (vague) standards subjectivity, and that the matrix predicate *find* is sensitive to the distinction between them. Novel to the present analysis is the proposal that *find* requires not just a complement that supports mapping subjectivity, but also a context that supports nonvacuous entailments about those scalar mappings. I part ways from Kennedy and from Barker 2013 in treating mapping subjectivity as a fact of the world, unassimilable to the metalinguistic variety of subjectivity associated with vague standards.