"unfortunates" - 1 õppematerjal

Keelefilosoofia raamat

First, recall Strawson's sentence from chapter 2, "This is a fine red one." As we saw, the meaning of that sentence itself is not fully determinate; to understand it, we need to know what the speaker is pointing to. One speaker in one context may mean that the pear in her/his hand is a fine red pear, while a different speaker on a different occasion may mean that the third fire-engine on the left is a fine figure of a red fire-engine. Second, suppose that like some unfortunates I incorrectly believe that the word "jejune" means something like callow or puerile,1 and I say "Mozart's `Piccolomini' Mass is jejune, not good Mozart at all," meaning that the `Piccolomini' Mass is callow and puerile. But "jejune" actually means meager and unsatisfying (it is from the Latin word for fasting); the sentence I uttered means that the Mass is meager and unsatisfying, which I would judge to be false even though I do find the Mass callow and puerile.