The relation between determinates and determinables has certain interesting formal and modal features. It is controversial whether these features are to be explained in terms of something more basic or whether they are primitive.

Formally speaking, the determinate-determinable relation is transitive, asymmetric, and irreflexive. Because scarlet is a determinate of red and red is a determinate of color, scarlet is a determinate of color. Because scarlet is a determinate of red, red is not a determinate of scarlet. And nothing is a determinate of itself.

Modally speaking, three features are worthy of note. First, if anything has some property, p, then it also has every property, q, of which p is a determinate. Thus, of necessity, scarlet things are red and colored. Second, the relation guarantees the exclusion of codeterminates. Nothing can have two determinates under a single determinable (provided the determinates...