Abstract
Theories of descriptions tend to involve commitments about the ambiguity of descriptions. For example, sentences containing descriptions are widely taken to be ambiguous between de re, de dicto, and intermediate interpretations and are sometimes thought to be ambiguous between the former and directly referential interpretations. I provide arguments to suggest that none of these interpretations are due to ambiguities (or indexicality). On the other hand, I argue that descriptions are ambiguous between the above family of interpretations and what may be called ‘institutional’ as well as generic interpretations. My arguments suggest that an adequate theory of descriptions may require considerable rethinking. Most contemporary theories of descriptions appear to be committed to one or more claims about the ambiguity of descriptions that I reject in this paper. I suggest that my observations provide a reason to renew efforts to develop a theory of descriptions within a representationalist theory of interpretation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Quine distinguished ‘notional’ and ‘relational’ interpretations instead. I merely seek to attach a familiar label to a roughly characterized family of interpretations.
Similar interpretive possibilities are afforded by sentences like ‘I want to find six dogs that talk,’ ‘I want to find most dogs that talk,’ etc. For the purposes of this paper, my concern will exclusively be definite and indefinite descriptions of the form ‘the F’ and ‘a F’.
For example: A king is free to execute his laws and his citizens as he sees fit.
An anonymous reviewer pointed out that examples parallel to (9) using ‘most’ instead the indefinite may suggest that even more uncontroversially quantificational expressions fail to be ambiguous between specific and general interpretations, suggesting that even for those expressions, there are more interpretive distinctions than can be captured by grammatically encoded ambiguities of scope.
I use ‘the murderer of Smith’ because it has become a standard example, even though it sounds somewhat awkward. In his classic paper, Donnellan uses both ‘the murderer of Smith’ and ‘Smith’s murderer.’ See Donnellan (1966, p. 286).
As Sennett observes, one could replace ‘die at dawn’ with a verb like ‘met’ in a modified scenario, should there be a worry that ‘the Prince and Queen’ is interpreted collectively. However, this worry does not seem urgent.
For example, an anonymous reviewer suggested that it is impossible to interpret, “the speaker of the house and minority leader of the senate will die at dawn” as saying that two individuals will die at dawn.
For example, pseudo-gapping, unlike VP ellipsis, rules out voice mismatches. See Merchant (2008).
For similar conclusions, see Chomsky (2000).
I use ‘institutional readings’ for want of a better label and to distinguish them from the broader class of interpretations that are sometimes called ‘weak definites’.
Note that there are other types of prima facie counterexamples, which are beyond the scope of this paper. My concern here is only with what I call ‘institutional readings’.
I thank André Estévez-Torres for the linguistic data on Spanish.
This is not to deny that there are other types of cases that potentially put pressure on the uniqueness condition.
An anonymous reviewer suggested that Heim, Kamp, and Karttunen’s particular representationalist theories might have particular trouble if my arguments generalize to expressions like ‘most’. Also see footnote 5.
References
Amaral, F. S. (2008). Definite descriptions are ambiguous. Analysis, 68(4), 288–297.
Atlas, J. (1977). Negation, ambiguity, and presupposition. Linguistics and Philosophy, 1, 323–336.
Atlas, J. (2005). Logic, meaning, and conversation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bach, K. (2004). Descriptions: Points of reference. In A. Bezuidenhout & M. Reimer (Eds.), Descriptions and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bealer, G. (1993). A solution to Frege’s Puzzle. Philosophical perspectives, 7, Language and logic, pp. 17–59.
Chomsky, N. (2000). New horizons in the study of language and mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Devitt, M. (2004). The case for referential descriptions. In A. Bezuidenhout & M. Reimer (Eds.), Descriptions and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Devitt, M. (2007). Referential descriptions and conversational implicatures. EUJAP, 3(2), 7–32.
Donnellan, K. (1966). Reference and definite descriptions. Philosophical Review, 75, 281–304.
Elbourne, P. (2005). Situations and individuals. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Fiengo, R., & May, R. (1994). Indices and identity. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Fodor, J. (1970). The linguistic description of opaque contexts. PhD thesis, MIT.
Fox, D. (1999). Focus, parallelism, and accommodation. In T. Matthews & D. Strolovitch (Eds.), Proceedings of the ninth conference on semantics and linguistic theory (pp. 70–90). Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In J. Kimball (Ed.), Syntax and semantics (Vol. 3, pp. 139–151). New York: Academic Press.
Heim, I. (1982). The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Heim, I. (1990). E-type pronouns and donkey anaphora. Linguistics and Philosophy, 13, 137–178.
Hintikka, K. J. J. (1973). Grammar and logic: Some borderline problems. In K. J. J. Hintikka, J. M. E. Moravcsik, & P. Suppes (Eds.), Approaches to natural language: Proceedings of the 1970 Stanford workshop on grammar and semantics (pp. 197–214). Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Ioup, G. (1975). Some universals for quantifier scope. Syntax and Semantics, 4, 37–58.
Kamp, H. (1981). A theory of truth and semantic interpretation. In J. Groenendijk, et al. (Eds.), Formal methods in the study of natural language. Amsterdam: Matematisch Centrum.
Kaplan, D. (1989). Demonstratives. In J. Almog & J. Perry (Eds.), Themes from Kaplan (pp. 481–563). New York: Oxford University Press.
Karttunen, L. (1968). What makes definite noun phrases definite? RAND Corporation report P-3871.
Karttunen, L. (1976). Discourse referents. In J. D. McCawley (Ed.), Syntax and semantics 7: Notes from the linguistic underground (pp. 363–385). New York: Academic Press.
Keshet, E. (2008). Good intensions: paving two roads to a theory of the De Re/De Dicto distinction. PhD thesis, MIT.
Keshet, E. (forthcoming). Split intensionality: A new scope theory of de re and de dicto.
Kripke, S. (1977). Speaker reference and semantic reference. In P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, & H. K. Wettstein (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives in the philosophy of language (pp. 6–27). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ludlow, P., & Segal, G. (2004). On a unitary semantical analysis for definite and indefinite descriptions. In A. Bezuidenhout & M. Reimer (Eds.), Descriptions and beyond: An interdisciplinary collection of essays on definite and indefinite descriptions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Merchant, J. (2008). An asymmetry in voice mismatches in VP-ellipsis and pseudo-gapping. Linguistic Inquiry, 39.1, 169–179.
Moffett, M. (2003). Knowing facts and believing propositions: A solution to the problem of doxastic shift. Philosophical Studies, 115, 81–97.
Neale, S. (1990). Descriptions. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Quine, W. V. O. (1956). Quantifiers and propositional attitudes. The Journal of Philosophy, 56(5), 177–187.
Reimer, M. (1998). Donnellan’s distinction/Kripke’s test. Analysis, 58, 89–100.
Russell, B. (1905). On denoting. Mind, 14, 479–493.
Salmon, N. (2004). The good, the bad, and the ugly. In A. Bezuidenhout & M. Reimer (Eds.), Descriptions and beyond (pp. 230–260). New York: Oxford University Press.
Sennett, A. (2002). An ambiguity test for definite descriptions. Philosophical Studies, 111, 81–95.
Sharvy, R. (1980). A more general theory of definite descriptions. The Philosophical Review, 89, 607–623.
Szabó, Z. G. (2000). Descriptions and uniqueness. Philosophical Studies, 101, 29–57.
Zwicky, A. M., & Sadock, J. M. (1975). Ambiguity tests and how to fail them. In J. P. Kimball (Ed.), Syntax and semantics (Vol. 4, pp. 1–36). New York: Academic Press.
Acknowledgments
I thank Gideon Rosen, Gil Harman, Paul Benacerraf, Delia Graff, Jay Atlas, and Philippe Schlenker, as well as an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and discussions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Koralus, P. Descriptions, ambiguity, and representationalist theories of interpretation. Philos Stud 162, 275–290 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9759-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9759-5