A performatory analysis of the overt use of the predicate "true"
Author
Şenol, Mahmut Burak
Advisor
Akman, Varol
Date
2013Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
The de
ationary theory has been one of the most in
uential theories of truth in
contemporary philosophy. This theory holds that there is no property of truth
at all, and that overt uses of the predicate \true" in our sentences are redundant,
having absolutely no e ect on what we express. However, all hypothetical
examples used by de
ationary theorists in exemplifying the theory, in papers,
books, have been taken out of context. Thus, there is no way to examine and
analyze what the predicate adds to the sentence within context. We oppose this
theory not on philosophical grounds, but on empirical grounds, with an \ordinary
language philosophy" approach. We computationally collect 7610 occurrences of
overt uses of the predicate \true" in the form \it is true that", from 10 in
uential
periodicals (newspapers and a magazine) published in the United States. We
classify and annotate these examples with respect to coordinating and subordinating
conjunctions' positions they contain. We investigate contextual relations
of the proposition following the phrase \it is true that" with its surrounding
propositions. We encounter 34 di erent syntactical patterns. We propose that in
some occurrences of overt uses of the predicate \true", existence of the predicate
makes an emphasis, performs an action in the same manner as a performatory
verb does. We provide ordinary language appearances of overt uses of the predicate
\true", which have been used in linguistically reliable media and constitute
pragmatic `counter-examples' to the de
ationary theory of truth.
Keywords
TruthPragmatics
The deationary theory
Ordinary language philosophy
Corpus-based linguistics
Natural language semantics
Part of speech tagger