Individual- and Stage-Level Predicates of Personal Taste

Abstract

This chapter compares simple predicates of personal taste (PPTs) such as tasty and beautiful with their complex counterparts (e.g. tastes good, looks beautiful). I argue that the former differ from the latter along two dimensions. Firstly, simple PPTs are individual-level predicates, whereas complex ones are stage level. Secondly, covert Experiencer arguments of simple PPTs obligatorily receive a generic interpretation; by contrast, the covert Experiencer of a complex PPT can receive a generic, bound variable or referential interpretation. I provide an analysis of these facts based on a novel proposal about the licensing of individual-level predicates (the ILP Licensing Condition). This condition states that all covert pronominal arguments of an individual-level predicate must be bound by the generic operator. Finally, I show that generic construal of the Experiencer is a necessary condition for faultless disagreement. This is evidence in favour of treatments of subjective meaning that appeal to genericity and against relativism about predicates of personal taste.