Quasi-proper names, linguistic use, and contextuality

In this paper I provide novel arguments for the predicative approach to proper names, which claims that argument proper names are definite descriptions containing a naming predicate (the individual called X). I first argue that modified proper names, such as the incomparable Maria Callas or the other Francis Bacon cannot be handled on the hypothesis that argument proper names have no internal structure and uniformly denote entities. I then discuss cases like every Adolf, which would normally be interpreted as every individual named Adolf and show that the predicative approach to proper names can straightforwardly account for the distribution of a detectable naming component in proper names. Finally, I address the issue of proper names used as common nouns (such as a Rembrandt or the new Madonna) and plural proper names (e.g., the Beatles) and demonstrate that they do not form a homogenous group yet can be clearly distinguished on both syntactic and semantic grounds from proper names involving a detectable naming component.

There is reason to think that the distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions is an instance of a general distinction that also applies to uses of proper names (Saul Kripke, “Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy II 1977). This means that if, as many have argued (against Kripke), the referential-attributive distinction has semantic significance, then the reference of a proper name, as used on a given occasion, may depend on whether or not the name is used referentially on that occasion. The present paper aims to do two things. First, the paper generalizes the referential-attributive distinction in a way that is different from Kripke’s generalization, but still applies to proper names as well as to definite descriptions. This general distinction is between what I call targeted and untargeted uses of noun phrases, including both definite descriptions and proper names. Second, the paper aims to show that targeted uses of proper names are regular and standard, just as targeted (i.e., referential) uses of definite descriptions are. This is important because the most prominent argument for the semantic significance of the referential use of definite descriptions, known as the “Argument from Convention,” is based on the referential use being regular and standard. Having established that the targeted use of proper names is also regular and standard, we are in a position to make a similar argument for the semantic significance of the targeted use of proper names.

In his lectures on logical atomism Russell maintains that (1) the proper names of natural language are really definite descriptions, and (2) indexicals are also definite descriptions, to the extent that they are used to refer to ordinary objects. In spite of the dominant referentialist trend championed by Kripke and Kaplan, there are good reasons to still think that Russell is right in holding these views. However, Russell’s descriptivist account of proper names and indexicals makes their meanings unpalatably idiosyncratic or subjective. This essay discusses and compares some ways in which this subjectivism can be avoided.

The present paper treats the problems of reference and especially the single definite reference. Some examples from the filmic discourse (which is considered as a possible world) illustrate the designation of individuals through definite descriptions and particularly through proper names : proper names are considered as rigid designators, which at the same time connote and function as a predicate of denomination to be called /N/ for an x.

This paper embeds a theory of proper names in a general approach to singular reference based on type-free property theory. It is proposed that a proper name “N” is a sortal common noun whose meaning is essentially tied to the linguistic type “N”. Moreover, “N” can be singularly referring insofar as it is elliptical for a definite description of the form the “N” Following Montague, the meaning of a definite description is taken to be a property of properties. The proposed theory fulfils the major desiderata stemming from Kripke's works on proper names.

Since the name 'Santa Claus' does not refer, Millian theories seem to imply that (1) is not meaningful. But (1) is not only meaningful-it is true. This problem, and other problems with Millian theories, have led some philosophers to accept description theories of proper names. These theories say (roughly) that proper names are synonymous with definite descriptions; thus they can allow proper names to be meaningful even when they fail to refer. But Donnellan, Kripke, and others have shown that the classical description theories of Frege and Russell are fraught with difficulties, to say the least. In his paper Names Without Bearers, Jerrold J. Katz claims to have found a solution to the problems raised by names without bearers.' He presents a new metalinguistic description theory of proper names that he says can explain why (1) and other sentences containing names without bearers are meaningful. He moreover claims that this new description theory is invulnerable to the (by now) standard objections to classical description theories. I disagree with Katz on two major points. First, I believe that Millian theories can account for the meaningfulness of (1) and other sentences containing names without bearers. I have argued for this point elsewhere (Braun 1993). Second, I believe that Katz's theory is not a viable alternative to Millian theories and that his

I provide a novel semantic analysis of proper names and indexicals, combining insights from the competing traditions of referentialism, championed by Kripke and Kaplan, and descriptivism, introduced by Frege and Russell, and more recently resurrected by Geurts and Elbourne, among others. From the referentialist tradition, I borrow the proof that names and indexicals are not synonymous to any definite description but pick their referent from the context directly. From the descriptivist tradition, I take the observation that names, and to some extent indexicals, have uses that are best understood by analogy with anaphora and definite descriptions, that is, following Geurts, in terms of presupposition projection. The hybrid analysis that I propose is couched in Layered Discourse Representation Theory. Proper names and indexicals trigger presuppositions in a dedicated layer, which is semantically interpreted as providing a contextual anchor for the interpretation of the other layers. For the proper resolution of DRSs with layered presuppositions, I add two constraints to van der Sandt's algorithm. The resulting proposal accounts for both the classic philosophical examples and the new linguistic data, preserving a unified account of the preferred rigid interpretation of both names and indexicals, while leaving room for non-referential readings under contextual pressure.

Some recent work in the philosophy of language has rightly emphasized the role which contextual factors play in the use of language. An adequate theory about how language operates, we are told, must distinguish between (a) that which expressions, constructions and sentences carry with them from one context to another and (b) that which is added by a context of utterance. The features which carry from one context to another have been referred to as context-independent factors, and those which are added contextually as contextdependent factors. This distinction is not, of course, a new one; but it is fair to say that it has not always been given its due in discussions of logical form. Notably, it is not given its due in Russell's famous theory of definite descriptions. In this paper I will propose an alternative way of analyzing sentences containing definite descriptions which does do justice to this distinction. Before I present this theory, however, I want to distinguish three things: referring, language, and what I will call the referential link. By referring I mean the identification of some object by a speaker (as a subject for communication). By the link I mean the semantical connection between a token of a singular term (e.g., a proper name or a definite description) and an object which makes the utterance containing that token literally about that object. By language I mean singular terms or sentences containing singular terms. Typically, a speaker refers to an object by producing

Using 61 acronyms and initialisms culled from Web sites in May 2003, this study shows that the syntactic behavior of abbreviations from phrases is regular. When a definite description is abbreviated, its syntactic category is predictable, depending on whether the result is an acronym (ERIC,NAFTA) or an initialism (FBI, NSF). Acronyms behave like proper names and drop the definite determiner: “ERIC produces a variety of publications....” Initialisms continue to behave like common compound nouns and retain the determiner: “... the FBI has unique response capabilities....” Two frequent exceptions, university names(UCLA) and television networks (NBC), are shown to act like bare locative nominals in English (go to school). Other apparent exceptions (GE, AA) are also shown to exhibit regularity.

As was noted in the second part of this book, both anaphorically used the-phrases and anaphoric pronouns are subject to an additional restriction. The tacit quantifiers governing the choice of b in (G. he) and (G. anaphoric the) have to be understood as being partially exclusive (cf. Hintikka 1973, chap. 1). More precisely, the choice of b in (G. he) (and in (G. anaphoric the)) must be restricted by excluding all individuals whose proper names, interpreted by having had (G. name) applied to them, occur in the same clause as (i.e., are, syntactically speaking, dominated by precisely the same S-nodes as) the pronoun (or the definite description) to which a game rule is being applied, at the stage of the game when a rule is applied to it. This general principle — we shall call it the “Exclusion Principle” — can be generalized to cover expressions other than pronouns that are evaluated by applying some game rule to them.

Kripke’s (1980) Naming and Necessity convinced many philosophers that referential expressions like indexicals and demonstratives, proper names and natural kind terms are dejure rigid designators-expressions that designate the same thing with respect to every possible world. This feature distinguishes them from other singular terms like definite descriptions, which might also behave de facto as rigid designators, but de Jure are not so. Kripke was well aware that his proposals created a philosophical puzzle. His view about referential expressions and alethic modalities entails the existence of modal illusions: truths that are in fact necessary appear to be contingent.

It is widely accepted that, in the course of interpreting a metaphorical utterance, both literal and metaphorical interpretations of the utterance are available to the interpreter, although there may be disagreement about the order in which these interpretations are accessed. I call this the dual availability assumption. I argue that it does not apply in cases of metaphorical singular reference. These are cases in which proper names, complex demonstratives or definite descriptions are used metaphorically; e.g., ‘That festering sore must go’, referring to a derelict house. We are forced to give up dual availability in these cases because a process of predicate transfer happens in the restriction clauses of such metaphorically used definite phrases (DPs), so that a denotation-less definite concept is never constructed. A process of enriched composition yields only a metaphorical referent/denotation. I compare cases of metaphorical reference both to cases of metonymic reference and to uses of epithets of the ‘That N of an N’ form. Reflection on the former is helpful in getting clear about the kind of property transfer involved in referential metaphors. Such transfer happens directly at the level of properties and is not mediated via a correspondence between objects, as is the case with metonymic reference. Reflection on epithets such as ‘that festering sore of a house’ is helpful since these are a sort of intermediate case between cases of literal and metaphorical reference. They provide support for my claim that in cases of metaphorical reference there is only a single referent (the metaphorical one). Moreover, constraints on the use of these epithets suggest that referential metaphors are similarly constrained. In particular, I argue that referential metaphors can only be used when the implicit category restriction (e.g., house in the case of the example ‘That festering sore must go’) is highly salient, and that the evaluative information conveyed by the metaphor serves primarily to indicate the speaker’s attitude towards the referent rather than being intended to help the hearer identify the referent.

This chapter reviews aspects of the way we use linguistic expressions (primarily noun phrases, NPs) to talk about things. After reviewing various types of NPs with respect to their possible use in referring (e.g. proper names, demonstratives, pronouns, definite descriptions, indefinite descriptions, generics), we turn to what it is that speakers are referring to, distinguishing real world from hypothetical and discourse referents. Figures of speech such as metonymy are briefly considered. Another important issue concerns choice of NP; for any given referent there are typically many possible expressions that could be used, and much research has concerned how the choices among them are made. Finally we consider the perspective of the addressee, and what factors (such as new and old information) play a role in interpreting intended referents.

The article presents the building of an event-centric model for the computational representation of crisis events using an ontology encoded in the Web Ontology Language (OWL). The work presented here is done in collaboration with the Leaders and Crisis Management in Ancient Literature. A Comparative Approach (LACRIMALit) project, (2022–2025) hosted at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/Foundation for Research and Technology (IMS-FORTH). A key outcome of the project is the LACRIMALit ontology that aims principally at the semantic annotation of ancient Greek historiographical texts in open access via Perseus Digital Library. The ontology will facilitate reasoning on and across these documents and enable their semantic querying. The tagset of annotations, concepts, relations, and terms of the ontology will be both human and machine readable, extensible and reusable. The annotated corpus of texts to be produced will be available for sophisticated queries based on the concepts and relations, defined by the ontologies. This will considerably improve the string-based querying of the texts in their present digital format. This article presents the principles of conceptualization of the domain in the three dimensions: domain knowledge (mainly classes illustrated with some individuals), linguistic dimension (terms, proper names, definite descriptions), and references.

Definiteness is a semantic-pragmatic notion that is closely associated with the use of the definite article (or determiner) in languages like English, Hungarian, Hebrew, and Lakhota. The definite article can be used in different conditions: deictic, anaphoric, unique, and certain indirect uses, often also called “bridging uses.” Accordingly, there are different semantic theories of definiteness, such as the salience theory, the familiarity or identifiability theory, and the uniqueness or inclusiveness theory. Definite expressions cover personal pronouns, proper names, demonstratives, definite noun phrases, and universally quantified expressions. Noun phrases with the definite article, known as “definite descriptions,” are a key issue in semantics and analytic philosophy with respect to the interaction of reference and description in identifying an object. The research and analysis of definiteness is of great importance not only for the linguistic structure of languages but also for our understanding of reference and referring in philosophy, cognitive science, computational linguistics, and communication science.