Jiang, Z.: Binary and Non-Binary Discourse: A Meta-Rule on the Legitimacy of Assertion [Bilingual: Chinese/English]

This paper proposes a meta-rule governing the form of assertion: discourse can be divided, by its logical structure, into binary and non-binary. Binary discourse makes a formal commitment to an answer space of exactly two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive options; this commitment logically entails the existence of a decidable criterion. Binary discourse without a decidable criterion does not assert imprecisely—it has not demonstrated that it has asserted anything at all. Non-binary disco