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Background:

Let us say that a couple is looking at the sunset. The man turns to his wife and says, "Beautiful." That is, although he could be referring to his wife, he is referring to the sunset.

Question:

In this situation, does the word "beautiful" refer only to the word "beautiful", or is the man really saying, "I think that the sunset is beautiful, don't you?"? That is, the single adjective is actually carrying a whole complete sentence within its mono-lexical universe. That is, "Beautiful" here is equivalent to "I think that the sunset is beautiful, don't you?"

Please answer this with only your own thoughts. No need to cite Ludwig Wittgenstein. I'm interested in what native and non-native English speakers think. What is your gut instinct?

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Obviously he is saying that he thinks the sunset, and perhaps the whole scene/view, is beautiful. He may or may not be implicitly asking "Don't you?", he may just be stating his opinion as a point of fact. – Jim Feb 11 at 4:59
Yes, but is the whole sentence involved or just the word? That per Uncle Bill's Hamlet is the question. – Patrick T. Randolph Feb 11 at 5:01
Only the word is uttered. The rest is left to the imagination of the listener. It is clear what the sentiment of the utterer is, but as to the exact "wording of his thoughts" that is impossible to decide, so it can't be "the whole sentence" because there is no whole sentence. Maybe the couple was on a treasure hunt and they needed to find the next clue before the sun set and they hadn't found it yet, and he says "Beautiful" as in, "Beautiful, now we've lost our only hope at saving our home from repossession." – Jim Feb 11 at 5:06
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Welcome to English Language & Usage. Unfortunately "Please answer this with only your own thoughts. No need to cite [any reputable source]" is pretty much the opposite of what the site is for. Questions asking for a bunch of opinions are explicitly off topic per the FAQ. – MετάEd Feb 11 at 5:15
I am hoping that users of this site are intelligent people, and I think they are. I am sure they can help in answering this. I have confidence that people "intuitively" know the answer. – Patrick T. Randolph Feb 11 at 5:57
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closed as not constructive by Jim, MετάEd, aedia λ, Kris, Autoresponder Feb 11 at 6:12

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