Differences in Sameness: A Semantic Account of Ambiguity and Argument Structure of Predicate Same

Abstract

This article is an investigation and analysis of the word same. It focuses first on the ambiguous nature of same, in that the same x can be (i) one entity seen on different occasions, or (ii) two different entities of the same kind. I discuss the empirical differences associated with these two readings, and hypothesize that they can be explained in terms of the formal semantic concepts of extension and intension: Reading (i) is extensional while reading (ii) is intensional (a “kind of” reading). In addition, I suggest that the two readings do not mean that there are two completely different meanings to same, but rather that the reading of same is determined by context and the nouns being modified by it; indeed, this polysemy exists largely below the speaker’s conscious awareness. I then provide a formal representation of the syntax and semantics of same as a two-place predicate. I show that when either of the two arguments we expect to be obligatory is not overt, it is because same has undergone a derivation to license this null argument—one derivation type in extensional cases of same, and a different derivation in intensional cases.