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I am wondering if there is a standard treatment of expressions such as "x is ready" or "x is proud". It seems to me that something like BE(x,ready) or BE-READY(x) is not enough, given that they do not capture the intuition that the meaning of those expressions is 'x is ready for/to do something'. I have been looking for a reference in the formal semantics literature, but I can't find anything apart from discussions without formal representations.

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    Ready can be a tough-predicate or a control predicate. Thus there's no telling what the semantics of the original sentence might be. It's also why you should be wary when a cannibal asks you "Are you ready to eat?"
    – Araucaria - him
    Nov 22, 2022 at 13:05
  • @Araucaria-him Yes! That sort of semantic ambiguity should be accounted for in a formal framework, right?
    – LuisB
    Nov 22, 2022 at 13:21
  • It is accounted for in any formal framework that notices the ambiguity. That's all the "accounting" a formal framework can do. No explanation in formal frameworks; just representation. Most of the time, predicate adjectives are not distinguished from verbs or predicate nouns, since they're all predicates. Hence Ready (x) is enough, just like Kill (x, y) means "x kills/killed y". See the Logic Guide for more details.
    – jlawler
    Nov 22, 2022 at 13:55
  • Interesting! Thank you @jlawler! Perhaps we should turn to lexical semantics for this kind of words. Hopefully there are explanations there!
    – LuisB
    Nov 22, 2022 at 14:09
  • @lemontree I thought they were predicative not because they were one-place or two-place predicates but because they form a predicate with BE (that is, they are not attributive). Am I wrong?
    – LuisB
    Nov 22, 2022 at 18:37

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