Temporal Propositions as Vague Predicates

Abstract. The idea that temporal propositions are vague predicates is examined with attention to the nature of the objects over which the pred-icates range. These objects should not, it is argued, be identified once and for all with points or intervals in the real line (or any fixed linear order). Context has an important role to play not only in sidestepping the Sorites paradox (Gaifman 2002) but also in shaping temporal mo-ments/extent (Landman 1991). The Russell-Wiener construction of time from events (Kamp 1979) is related to a notion of context given by a string of observations, the vagueness in which is brought out by ground-ing the observations in the real line. With this notion of context, the context dependency functions in Gaifman 2002 are adapted to interpret temporal propositions.