Vagueness effects predictably occur in predicates that aggregate judgments along a number of different criteria. With these types of aggregations, small changes along one of the criteria can lead to big changes in the outcome of the aggregation procedure. Vagueness results from avoiding this 'whiplash' effect.

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Vagueness effects predictably occur in predicates that aggregate judgments along a number of different criteria. With these types of aggregations, small changes along one of the criteria can lead to big changes in the outcome of the aggregation procedure. Vagueness results from avoiding this ‘whiplash’ effect.

The event-in-progress reading of the English incremental-theme progressive (Elena is drawing a circle) displays vagueness effects, especially when the culmination of the event denoted by the progressive is unlikely. This paper explains these unexpected vagueness effects by adopting a modal theory of the progressive and a gradable theory of modality. It is then possible to explain vagueness effects in the progressive as a result of the same semantic phenomena that generate vagueness effects in gradable adjectives like healthy.