stepgrandparents and relational ambiguity

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Thu Jan 22 21:53:20 UTC 2009


At 1/22/2009 02:30 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>The fact that we have a word "murder" that entails
>'kill deliberately' (among other things) doesn't make "kill"
>ambiguous between intentional and unintentional readings.

I would say in legal contexts both "kill" and "murder" can be
ambiguous.  We do not punish all such acts equally, but take into
account intention, ability to understand or to control ones actions,
and other circumstances.

Does this make all ambiguity contextual?  That is, a word is
ambiguous if within its utterance the hearer needs more information.

Joel

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