Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

        The purpose of this paper is to clarify the mechanism that produces various interpretations of tautological sentences in the form of 'X is X' and to show some of the extraordinary dynamic aspects of the processes of category reorganization involved in discourse understanding. Meaning in natural language is not simply given by linguistic forms. It is computed or created dynamically in context and tautology is an extreme case of this meaning creation process in natural language.

        Tautologies such as 'X is X' have two major uses, which seem quite opposite to each other.  The first one, called 'homogenization', is a refusal to recognize the significance of differences among category members. The second use, called 'differentiation', is an acknowledgement of the significance of differences among members of a certain category.  The mechanism that produces this dual interpretation is quite simple. If you use a category name, your attention is on the category and a certain kind of sameness among its members shows up.  On the other hand, if you use a member name, you look at the members individually and their differences will be perceived strongly.  Thus, depending on whether the terms used in the tautological sentences are the names of a category or the names of members, we obtain homogenization or differentiation. I also discuss some other uses of tautological sentences and point out that the interpretation of tautological sentences brings about contextually built up ad hoc categories and sometimes even nameless ones.