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Single Idea 7771

[from 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences' by Donald Davidson, in 7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events ]

Full Idea

To deal with the truth conditions for some adverbs, Davidson introduced a domain of 'events', and made adverbs into adjectival predicates of events.

Gist of Idea

We need 'events' to explain adverbs, which are adjectival predicates of events

Source

report of Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.9

Book Reference

Lycan,William G.: 'Philosophy of Language' [Routledge 2000], p.144


A Reaction

This seems to be a striking case of a procedure of which I heartily disapprove - deriving you ontology from your semantics. Do all languages have adverbs?