Jakob Hoepelman

Abstract Traditional linguistics, philosophy, formal semantics, and computational logic treat the positive form as an absolute foundation and build comparisons upon it. This paper demonstrates that this hierarchy turns epistemic reality upside down: the positive is a pragmatically frozen comparative. By treating the noun itself as a comparative sorting algorithm operating on power sets, we introduce an inherently comparative framework. By means of comparative truth tables we show the cross-disciplinary utility of this unified logic by applying it to major paradoxes and systemic failures: the resolution of the Sorites and Zeno's paradoxes, Russell's catalogue paradox, his riddle about the king of France and his description of “becoming”, the architectural fix for SQL's trivalent NULL anomalies in relational databases, the topological reinterpretation of quantum superposition (Schrödinger's Cat), the formalization of contrastive machine learning gradients (video actions, gastronomic Scoville scales, and interlingual translation gaps) and finally a treatment of Counterfactual Conditionals by means of a comparatively interpreted Failure-Operator. The paper ends with a few summary remarks on the support by AI I received in writing and the advantage the use of AI may mean for certain categories of authors

Over the past few decades, the book series Linguistische Arbeiten [Linguistic Studies], comprising over 500 volumes, has made a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory both in Germany and internationally. The series will continue to deliver new impulses for research and maintain the central insight of linguistics that progress can only be made in acquiring new knowledge about human languages both synchronically and diachronically by closely combining empirical and theoretical analyses. To this end, we invite submission of high-quality linguistic studies from all the central areas of general linguistics and the linguistics of individual languages which address topical questions, discuss new data and advance the development of linguistic theory.