Hedged Assertion
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Keywords
assertion, hedges, declaratives, norms of assertion, linguistic communication
Abstract
Surprisingly little has been written about hedged assertion. Linguists often focus on semantic or syntactic theorizing about, for example, grammatical evidentials or epistemic modals, but pay far less attention to what hedging does at the level of action. By contrast, philosophers have focused extensively on normative issues regarding what epistemic position is required for proper assertion, yet they have almost exclusively considered unqualified declaratives. This essay considers the linguistic and normative issues side-by-side. We aim to bring some order and clarity to thinking about hedging, so as to illuminate aspects of interest to both linguists and philosophers. In particular, we consider three broad questions. 1) The structural question: when one hedges, what is the speaker’s commitment weakened from? 2) The functional question: what is the best way to understand how a hedge weakens? And 3) the taxonomic question: are hedged assertions genuine assertions, another speech act, or what?
Recommended Citation
Matthew A. Benton and Peter van Elsywk. "Hedged Assertion." In The Oxford Handbook of Assertion, edited by Sanford Goldberg. Oxford University Press, 2019.
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