Explore the vast range of titles available.

While proper names in argument positions have received a lot of attention, this cannot be said about proper names in the naming construction, as in \"Call me Al\". I argue that in a number of more or less familiar languages the syntax of naming constructions is such that proper names there have to be analyzed as predicates, whose content mentions the name itself (cf. \"quotation theories\"). If proper names can enter syntax as predicates, then in argument positions they should have a complex structure, consisting of a determiner and its restriction, like common nouns (cf. \"definite description theories of proper names\"). Further consideration of the compositional semantics of proper names in the naming construction also shows that they have another argument slot, that of the naming convention. As a result, we will be able to account for the indexicality of proper names in argument positions and provide compositional semantics of complex and modified proper names (e.g., the famous detective Sherlock Holmes).

Speaking of dental floss contaminated with bacteria, I may separate the dental floss that is sterile from the dental floss that isn't sterile. The definite description \"the dental floss that isn't sterile\" contracts its reference to just the dental floss near bacteria, although it, the dental floss whole, isn't sterile. To accommodate the definite descriptions that contract their reference, received definitions for ┌the Φ┐ are amended from (1) to read as in (2): (1) ┌the Φ┐ refers to that which any Φ is part of and is the least such. (2) ┌the Φ┐ refers to that which any Φ overlaps and is the least such. If definite description is to be based on a purely logical notion of plural and mass predication, it is further amended. Like overt demonstratives—┌this/these Φ┐, ┌that/those Φ┐—any definite description in natural language is also perspectival, scanning everywhere the description Φ is satisfied: (3) ┌the Φ┐ refers to the least Φ that overlap Φ anywhere there is Φ.

Using a version of situation semantics, this article argues that bare and complex demonstratives are interpreted as individual concepts.

Since Fodor 1970, negation has worn a Homogeneity Condition to the effect that homogeneous predicates (e.g., (1), (2)) denote homogeneously—all (1) or nothing (2)—to characterize the meaning of (1)—(2) when uttered out-of-the blue, in contrast to (3)–(4): (1) The mirrors are smooth. (2) The mirrors are not smooth. (3) The mirrors circle the telescope's reflector. (4) The mirrors do not circle the telescope's reflector. It has been a problem for philosophical logic and for the semantics of natural language that (5)–(6) appear to defy the Principle of Excluded Middle while (7)–(8) do not— (5) Smooth(m) (6) ¬Smooth(m) (7) Circle(m) (8) ¬Circle(m). An impoverished logical form (5)–(8) has been the occasion to embellish all else—Boolean algebra, lexical presuppositions, Strongest Meaning Hypothesis, trivalence, supervaluation, double strengthening, etc., enriching the semantics and pragmatics with what remains a special theory of negation, which may be dismissed when the logical syntax and semantics of negation reflects that negated sentences are also tensed sentences.

This article analyzes three phenomena that are troublesome for some theories of ellipsis: the existence of sloppy readings when the relevant pronouns cannot possibly be bound; cases where the antecedent of ellipsis does itself contain an ellipsis site, but in resolving the larger ellipsis the interpretation understood at the ellipsis site in the antecedent is not used; and cases where an ellipsis site draws upon material from two or more separate antecedents. These cases are accounted for by an analysis of silent VPs and NPs that makes them into higher-order definite descriptions that can be bound into.

Contrary to a claim made by Kaplan (Mind 114:933-1003, 2005) and Neale (Mind 114: 809-871, 2005), the readings available to sentences containing definite descriptions embedded under propositional attitude verbs and conditionals do pose a significant problem for the Russellian theory of definite descriptions. The Fregean theory of descriptions, on the other hand, deals easily with the relevant data.

In this paper, a paradox is shown to arise in the context of classical logic from prima facie highly plausible assumptions for the existence predicate as applied to definite descriptions. There are several possibilities to evade the paradox; all involve modifications in the principles of first-order logic with identity, existence, and definite descriptions; some stay within classical logic, others leave it. The merits of the various \"ways out\" are compared. The most attractive \"way out,\" it is argued, stays within classical logic, except for the fact that it involves a new logical truth: \"There is at least one non-existent object.\" But this \"exit\" will certainly not be to everyone's taste and liking. Thus, the paradox defies complete resolution (as every good paradox should).

This article has two main parts. In the first, the subject pronoun in a cleft sentence together with the cleft clause is shown to function pragmatically as a discontinuous definite description. Applying the GIVENNESS HIERARCHY (Gundel et al. 1993) makes it possible to explain the distribution of this-clefts and that-clefts in discourse, and predicts the more frequent occurrence of it-clefts. Clefts also semantically share existential and exhaustiveness conditions with definite descriptions. The second part presents a new syntactic analysis of clefts, which treats the cleft clause as an extraposed complement of the cleft subject pronoun, adjoined to the clefted constituent.

  Descriptions exhibit narrow-scope reading with respect to modal operators while names do not. Rothschild discusses a simple observation: scope ambiguities between definite descriptions and modal operators are only sometimes available.

A recent challenge to Russell’s theory of definite description centers upon the divergent behavior of definites and their Russellian paraphrases in non-extensional contexts. Russellians can meet this challenge, I argue, by incorporating the familiarity theory of definiteness into Russell’s theory. The synthesis of these two seemingly incompatible theories produces a conceptually consistent and empirically powerful framework. As I show, the coalescence of Russellianism and the familiarity theory of definiteness stands as a legitimate alternative to both Traditional Russellianism and alternative semantic frameworks.