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The trichotomy thesis holds that if two items can be compared in terms of some value or set of values, then the two items are related by one of the standard trichotomy of comparative relations, "better than," "worse than," or "equally good" (2002b, 660).
A number of authors have argued that these three comparative relations do not exhaust the space of comparative relations.
A set of hints (comparative relations) is therefore collected.
The second concerns the range of comparative relations that can hold between two items.
"Roughly equal" and "on a par," for example, are intransitive, so to recognize them as distinct comparative relations would require us to reconsider the transitivity of comparative relations (Hsieh 2007).
Instead, it may be that one of the three standard comparative relations obtains between the items in question.
Similar(44)
In addition, as discussed, alternatives that appear incomparable by way of "better than," "worse than," or "equally good" may be comparable by way of some fourth comparative relation, such as "roughly equal" or "on a par".
Such comparative relation can help to understand the results obtained.
Each hint represents a comparative relation (younger or older) which provides information to compute the estimated age at the next stage.
Furthermore, "roughly equal" is a relation that can be defined only in virtue of three items, and as such, appears to be something distinct from a standard comparative relation.
There is some debate as to whether "roughly equal" is in fact a fourth comparative relation to be considered in addition to the three standard relations, "better than," "worse than," and "equally good".
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