Szabo on “As”-Phrases

Zoltan Szabo. “On Qualification”:http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/zs15/Qualification.pdf. Added 30 July 2003 - Comments welcomed.

bq. This is a draft of a paper on the semantics of as-phrases. I argue that sentences like ‘John as a judge earns (exactly) $50,000′ involve two-layered predication where the qualified predicate (here: ‘earns (exactly) $50,000′) is ascribed to the subject insofar as the qualifying predicate (here: ‘judge’) is. Predication “under a description” is given a semantics within a neo-Davidsonean framework. I also argue that the analysis can shed light on the way qualification is used in discussing questions of sameness and difference in metaphysics.