gavagai

A page about meaning, indeterminacy, and the word a stranger shouts when a rabbit runs by.

Consider “gavagai.” Who knows but that the objects to which this term applies are not rabbits at all, but mere stages, or brief temporal segments, of rabbits? In either event the stimulus situations that prompt assent to “gavagai” would be the same as for “rabbit.” Or perhaps the objects to which “gavagai” applies are all and sundry undetached parts of rabbits; again the stimulus meaning would register no difference.