A label semantics approach to linguistic hedges

• Models of the linguistic hedges ‘very’ and ‘quite’ are provided.
• The models are semantically grounded.
• Three levels of generalisation of the hedges are given.
• Models of hedges from the literature can be recovered from this formulation.
• Hedges can be composed and their behaviour in the limit is given.

We introduce a model for the linguistic hedges ‘very’ and ‘quite’ within the label semantics framework, and combined with the prototype and conceptual spaces theories of concepts. The proposed model emerges naturally from the representational framework we use and as such, has a clear semantic grounding. We give generalisations of these hedge models and show that they can be composed with themselves and with other functions, going on to examine their behaviour in the limit of composition.