Abstract

ABSTRACT The most common answers to metasemantic questions regarding context-sensitive expressions appeal primarily to speakers' intentions. Having rejected intentionalism in Lewis [.” Erkenntnis 85: 1527–1555.], this paper takes a non-intentionalist perspective in answering the metasemantic question: how does a context determine the value of context-sensitive expressions? It focuses on the case of gradable adjectives, i.e. expressions like ‘tall’, ‘expensive’, and ‘rich’, which require a contextually determined standard in the unmarked positive form, as in ‘Pia is tall’. I argue that this standard is determined by a salient comparison class, which, when embedded in the relevant facts, provides input into statistical reasoning which outputs a standard in accordance with conversational domain goals.