The purpose of the thesis is to (i) single out and clarify the most common types of issues emerging in the interpretation of multilingual tax treaties (i.e. tax treaties authenticated in two or... Show moreThe purpose of the thesis is to (i) single out and clarify the most common types of issues emerging in the interpretation of multilingual tax treaties (i.e. tax treaties authenticated in two or more languages), and (ii) suggest how the interpreter should tackle and disentangle such issues under public international law, with a particular emphasis on the kinds of arguments he should use and the kinds of elements and items of evidence he should rely upon in order to support his construction of the treaty. In order to address such issues, the author has developed a normative (prescriptive) legal analysis based on modern linguistic and, more specifically, semantic theories. However, since the purpose of the study is to suggest how the interpreter should now tackle and disentangle those issues, the author has also carried out a positive (prescriptive) analysis, which highlights the generally accepted principles and rules of treaty interpretation, in order (i) to carve out from his (non-ideal) normative legal theory the results potentially conflicting with such generally accepted principles and rules and (ii) to show how his normative legal theory might be applied to solve interpretative issues in cases where no common solution has been reached yet. Show less
Words may have multiple interpretations. Generally, native speakers do not perceive this as a problem, because the context provides enough clues as to what is meant. For non-native speakers and... Show moreWords may have multiple interpretations. Generally, native speakers do not perceive this as a problem, because the context provides enough clues as to what is meant. For non-native speakers and students of dead languages, however, the existence of multiple interpretations sometimes does raise problems. This suggests that the context is not the only clue native speakers use to interpret words.In this dissertation, it is studied what types of context Dutch speakers need to interpret the poly-interpretable word ergens ‘somewhere/anywhere’, modal particle. The results of this investigation were used to find out more about the Ancient Greek form που ‘somewhere, anywhere’, modal particle.This thesis shows that the study of contextual cues that allow native speakers to interpret their language provides insights that may be used in the study of dead languages. The modal interpretations of ergens and που turned out to be quite different, but the context of both words clearly showed recurring (albeit different) patterns. Knowledge of the common interpretation of words in specific contexts seems crucial for their interpretation, suggesting that it is not words themselves that carry meaning, but words-in-context. Show less
