In The Two-Dimensionalist Framework: Foundations and Applications, ed. M. Garcia-Carpintero and J. Macia (Oxford: 2004) 1. Three Roles for Associated Properties Bad

1. Three Roles for Associated Properties Let us say that a speaker associates property P with word T iff the speaker believes that the referent of T (if it exists) has P. Here are three roles that associated properties might fill. First, a speaker might be able to know that the referent of word T has certain properties (if it exists), armed only with her understanding of T and a bit of a priori reflection. If so, then let us say that those properties fill the a priori role (for word T). For instance, perhaps anyone who understands the word water is able to know, without appeal to any further a posteriori information, that water refers to the clear, drinkable natural kind whose instances are predominant in our oceans and lakes (if water refers at all—we will suppress this qualification from here on). Or, less controversially, perhaps anyone who understands water is able to know that water refers to a natural kind, or at least that it doesn’t refer to an abstract object like a number. Or, almost uncontroversially, perhaps anyone who understands water is able to know