Sobre la 'imprecisión' de "cierto"

This paper explores the view according to which the determiner cierto conveys a deliberate imprecision as part of its semantic meaning and, correspondingly, can be characterized as a “marker of approximation” or “slack regulator” widening the pragmatic halo of the expressions in which it occurs. The...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fernández Ruiz, Graciela
Format: Online
Language:Spanish
Editor: El Colegio de México 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://nrfh.colmex.mx/index.php/nrfh/article/view/1190
Journal:

Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica

Description
Summary:This paper explores the view according to which the determiner cierto conveys a deliberate imprecision as part of its semantic meaning and, correspondingly, can be characterized as a “marker of approximation” or “slack regulator” widening the pragmatic halo of the expressions in which it occurs. The aim of the present study is to show that the alleged imprecision is not part of the semantics of cierto but a pragmatic inference, and that the determiner cierto not only does not expand the utterance’s pragmatic halo but does quite the opposite: it tightens it.