Katarzyna Kijania-Placek

In this paper, we argue that proper names have deferred uses. Following Geoffrey Nunberg, we describe the deferred reference mechanism by which a linguistic expression refers to something in the world by exploiting a contextually salient relation between an index and the referent in question. Nunberg offered a thorough analysis of deferred uses of indexicals but claimed that proper names do not permit such uses. We, however, offer a number of examples of uses of proper names which pass grammatical tests for deferred usage, as put forward by Nunberg.

This paper advances the thesis that the proper names of some institutions, such as the names of universities, heads of state and certain positions or agencies, inherit the linguistic types of the nouns which denote the basic category of the objects that the names refer to, e.g., “university”, “school” or “company”. A reference by those names may select particular aspects of institutions, in the same way that “city” or “book” selects the physical, legal or informational aspects of objects in the extension of the nouns. This view is based on Asher’s and Pustejovsky’s conception of dot-type semantics.

In this article, we challenge Matushansky’s (Linguistics and Philosophy, 21, 573–627, 2008) small clause treatment of proper names in naming constructions. While she is widely credited with establishing, based on cross-linguistic evidence, that names should be viewed as predicates in naming constructions, we present a counterexample from Polish that questions the universal interpretation of the small clause hypothesis (SCH). This leads us to advocate for an alternative analysis of proper names in naming constructions, wherein they are considered components of the argument of a naming verb. We posit that this approach may have deflationist implications for predicativism concerning proper names, as it does not necessitate the existence of primitive name-predicates. We argue that there is no compelling positive evidence for the existence of predicative uses of names whose application conditions cannot be articulated using an equivalent phrase that quotes or mentions the name. Any apparent use of “Delia” as a predicate can be cast either (i) as not really a predicate, but rather an argument mentioning the name “Delia,” or (ii) as a genuine predicate, albeit one with an application condition defined by one of the well-established existing predicates, such as “individual called ‘Delia,’” where the name is mentioned. Predicative uses of names are thus dependent on the mention of names, and so there is a sense in which there are no primitive name-predicates.

Proper names are typically considered to be devices of individual reference. Since Frege (1882), the debate has mainly concerned the proper semantic characteristics of this individual reference. Burge (J Philos 70:425–439, 1973) challenged this focus by highlighting the predicative uses of proper names and proposed that names are predicates even if they appear as bare singulars in the argument position. In turn, this unificatory account was subjected to criticism by Böer, Jeshion, and others, who provided counterexamples to the predicativist analysis of proper names. In this paper, I want to analyze the nonreferential uses of proper names, which, by being nonreferential, provide a challenge for both predicativism and referentialism about proper names. I critically examine the processes proposed as possible accounts of the problematic examples, i.e. deferred reference, meaning transfer, and coercion, and argue that they do not provide an adequate analysis. I propose an interpretive mechanism that accounts for these problematic uses of proper names, as well as a new principle for classifying the kinds of uses of proper names based on the interpretive mechanisms underlying those uses and which includes all of the kinds of uses discussed in the literature.

Proper names are usually considered devices of singular reference but, when considered as word-types, they also exhibit other kinds of uses. In this paper I intend to show that systematic kinds of uses of proper names considered as word-types can be accounted for by a generalized rule-based conception of systematic polysemy, one which not only postulates a multiplicity of stable senses for an expression, but also a multiplicity of content generating rules, each of which determines potentially different contents in different contexts. In contrast to the currently extant polysemous conceptions of proper names (Leckie in Philos Stud 165:1139–1160, 2013), which only encompass individual and predicative uses, the presented proposal concerns all systematic uses of proper names considered in the literature, i.e., individual, predicative, deferred, descriptive, anaphoric, and bound uses of proper names. The resulting conception accommodates referential intuition about the default individual uses of proper names while also admitting other kinds of uses without generating homonymy. It transpires that proper names are semantically underdetermined and context-sensitive expressions.

The thesis advanced in this paper is that the proper names of cities or countries inherit the linguistic types of the nouns which denote the basic category of the objects the names refer to. As a result, in the case of the proper names of cities or countries, a reference by those names may select particular aspects of those objects, in the same way that book or newspaper selects the physical or informational aspects of objects in the extension of the nouns. This view is based on Asher’s and Pustejovsky’s conception of dot type semantics.

The objectives of this paper are twofold. The first is to present a differentiation between two kinds of deferred uses of indexicals: those in which indexical utterances express singular propositions (I term them deferred reference proper) and those where they express general propositions (called descriptive uses of indexicals). The second objective is the analysis of the descriptive uses of indexicals. In contrast to Nunberg, who treats descriptive uses as a special case of deferred reference in which a property contributes to the proposition expressed, I argue that examples in which a general proposition is indeed expressed by an indexical cannot be treated by assuming that the property is a deferred referent of the pronoun. I propose an analysis of descriptive uses of indexicals by means of a pragmatic mechanism of ‘descriptive anaphora’, which attempts to explain the special kind of contribution of the property retrieved from the context to the proposition that is characteristic of the descriptive interpretation.

This paper offers an analysis of indexical expressions and proper names as they are used in proverbs. Both indexicals and proper names contribute properties rather than objects to the propositions expressed when they are used in sentences interpreted as proverbs. According to the proposal, their contribution is accounted for by the mechanism of descriptive anaphora. Indexicals with rich linguistic meaning, such as ‘I’, ‘you’ or ‘today’, turn out to be cases of the attributive uses of indexicals, i.e. uses whose contribution relies on the linguistic meaning of the word. Third person pronouns, names of locations as well as surnames are analyzed as non-attributive descriptive uses.

In this paper I argue for a non-referential interpretation of some uses of indexicals embedded under epistemic modals. The so-called descriptive uses of indexicals come in several types and it is argued that those embedded within the scope of modal operators do not require non-referential interpretation, provided the modality is interpreted as epistemic. I endeavor to show that even if we allow an epistemic interpretation of modalities, the resulting interpretation will still be inadequate as long as we retain a referential interpretation of indexicals. I then propose an analysis of descriptive indexicals that combines an epistemic interpretation of modality with a non-referential interpretation of indexicals.

Descriptive uses of indexicals result in expressing a general proposition instead of a singular proposition, which is typical for indexicals. In contrast to Nunberg's and Recanati's proposals, who treat such uses of indexicals as referring, the conception developed in the paper is a quasi-anaphoric interpretation of descriptive uses of indexicals. In the quasi-anaphoric mechanism an indexical expression inherits its semantic properties from its antecedent, but - in contrast to classical anaphora - that antecedent comes from extra-linguistic context: it is a salient property of the individual in question. Since indexicals are quasi-anaphoric with respect to properties instead of being anaphoric with respect to referring expressions, the propositions generated are general. Three types of descriptive uses of indexicals are distinguished. In the first type the quasi-anaphoric mechanism is triggered by the conflict at the semantic level between the singularity of an indexical and the generality of a quantifier. In the second type (luck of reference in the context) the proposition is generated at the level of primary pragmatic processes. In both cases the propositions in question are the propositions expressed. In the third type the quasi-anaphoric mechanism is triggered by the conflict between the proposition expressed and the purpose of expressing it. As a result the proposition generated quasi-anaphorically is the Gricean proposition implicated