Abstract
Predicativists hold that proper names have predicate-type semantic values. They face an obvious challenge: in many languages (English among them) names normally occur as, what appear to be, grammatical arguments (call these bare occurrences). The standard version of predicativism answers this challenge by positing an unpronounced determiner in bare occurrences. I argue that this is a mistake. Predicativists should draw a distinction between two kinds of semantic type—underived semantic type and derived semantic type. The predicativist thesis concerns the underived semantic type of proper names and underdetermines a view about the semantic type of bare occurrences. I’ll argue that predicativists should hold that bare names are derived individual-denoting expressions. I end by considering what this result means for the relationship between predicativism and other metalinguistic theories of names.
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Notes
A non-exhaustive list of work in support of Predicativism: Sloat (1969), Burge (1973), Hornsby (1976) Bach (1981, 2002), Katz (1990), Segal (2001), Geurts (1997), Elbourne (2005, Chap. 6), Matushansky (2006, 2008), Sawyer (2009), Fara (2011, 2015a). For some recent work critical of predicativism see Leckie (2013), Rami (2014a, 2015), Jeshion (2014, 2015), Predelli (2015), Schoubye (2016a, b), and Delgado (2016)
An important issue which I won’t discuss here is the status of singular unmodified definite descriptions containing proper names (e.g. the Alfred). Sloat claims that these are ungrammatical (1969, p. 27). This is too strong. It is not clear, either from the point of view of predicativism or non-predicativism, how to explain the conditions under which such constructions are available. I discuss the issue in Gray (2017). See also Jeshion (2015).
I use bold font to indicate quotation (or quasi-quotation, where appropriate). I assume, following Matushansky (2008) and Fara (2011), that names are used and not mentioned in constructions like called Alfred. Nothing of substance here turns on that assumption. There hasn’t been a lot of work by predicativists on the nature of name-bearing properties (i.e, the properties expressed by predicative occurrences of names). They have agreed that such properties are not semantic (thus, they take it, avoiding the charge that the view is viciously circular). Broadly, facts about name-bearing are supposed to be determined by social and cultural practices, independent of considerations about reference. This isn’t entirely plausible. See Sect. 7 for more discussion.
This is actually too strong. Sometimes predicativists will point to the fact that there are languages in which when names are used in normal reference they occur with an overt definite determiner as evidence in favour of the NDH and, by extension, evidence for predicativism. So predicativism without NDH will lose this piece of evidence, and have to account for those languages in another way. I’ve argued in other places that there are independent reasons for predicativists not to argue in this way—see Gray (2017). See also note (22).
Note that the subscripts in examples of this kind are not meant as part of a syntactic representation of the sentence. They merely serve to indicate the intended anaphoric relations.
Of course, with the right context one can access the relevant readings of both one and also. The data are somewhat subtle. For example, forms of parallelism make it easier to hear the relevant reading with also. Note that it is relatively easy to access the relevant reading in (9a).
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(a) Ralph\(_{i}\) is also\(_{i}\) a Charles.
But this is consistent with the basic observation. Given the right situation, both one and also can pick up their antecedent from non-linguistic context. The important data is the contrast between (8a) and (8b), which is unexpected given NDH.
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I’ll mention a significant complication. Many contemporary approaches to morphosyntax either minimize or completely reject the distinction between syntactic and phonological structure. For example, Distributed Morphology (DM) (Halle and Marantz 1994) is an influential approach to linguistic architecture that denies a division of labour between syntactic and lexical productive rules. The basic idea behind DM is that linguistic structure is “syntactic structure all the way down” (ibid. p. 276). What might look like lexical structure—for example, the structure of adjective plus comparative in smart-er—is simply the phonological realization of particular syntactic configuration of features. Those same features might, in other constructions be phonologically realized as distinct words, as in (10) (Embick and Marantz 2008, p. 12).
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Helen is more smart than she is wise.
Obviously, the proposal I develop here would need to be transformed to fit into a DM framework. The framework posits different layers of syntactic structure related by derivational rules. One such layer, LF represents the level of structure that captures “meaning-related structural relations” (Harley and Noyer 1999, p. 5). It is unclear to me what layer of structure, in DM, would be relevant to licensing one or also, but to develop of the kind of approach discussed below in the context of DM would require positing a derivation which moves names out of predicative position at that level of structure, and correspondingly alters a name’s semantic type. I cannot speak to how plausible that would be relative to the rest of the DM framework. The example of grandmother/grandma below demonstrates, independently of names, that a mechanism of this kind is needed.
It should also be noted that Matushansky’s version of NDH-predicativism is framed within the DM framework. She posits a morphological rule, m-merger, which merges the determiner and the proper name in the right syntactic configuration (2006, p. 296ff). It might be that this process can play the same role that the lexical-rule plays in the approach developed here. To my knowledge Matushansky does not discuss these issues.
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In some dialects, some non-familial nouns can also appear bare. These often express authority relation. For example coach can appear bare in some American dialects. This class of nouns should not be confused with a different class of nouns which can appear bare, but only in address. Note the difference between (11a) in which doctor can appear in address, and (11b), where lawyer cannot.
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(a) Doctor, you’ve got to help me!
(b) #Lawyer, you’ve got to help me!
The ability of a noun to bare in address roughly corresponds with its ability to function as a title (note: Doctor Smith, Coach Jones, # Lawyer Smith, #Teacher Jones). Waiter, is an exception to this rule.
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Note that in many languages, English is not among them, familial nouns can be used bare to address individuals on either end of the relevant relation. For example, an occurrence of Mami in Puerto Rican Spanish can be used either by a child to address their mother or by a mother to address one of her children. This is an interesting phenomena, but it is confined to address rather than reference—see note (11)—so is not directly relevant here.
It is possible, given the right context and intonation, to hear this as acceptable. This is not surprising, the same is true with bare names. The important point is the contrast between (15a) and (15b), rather than absolute judgment about (15a).
Would it be problem for the hypothesis that bare familial nouns are semantically derivative of a predicative meaning if it turned out, as seems likely, that children learn to operate with the bare occurrences before they operate with the predicative occurrences? I don’t think so. The claim about semantic derivation is claim about mature competence. What precisely to say about the nature of immature competence is an interesting question, but one which would presumably apply in a parallel way to range of nouns. Children presumably learn a variety of predicates—dog, cat, etc. —by first only applying them to individual instances. Children presumably also learn to operate with certain syntactic complexes initially as unstructured idioms and only later parse as complex and compositional.
Thanks to a reviewer for pressing this issue.
As with bare names, the default with bare familial nouns is to interpret prenominal adjective as non-restrictive, as in (17).
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Give my regards to dear Mother.
My sense is that it’s roughly as easy to hear prenominal adjectives restrictively with both. Consider (18a) and (18b).
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(a) I gave young Alfred the cake.
(b) I gave young Grandma the cake.
With the right intonation, you can hear young restrictively in either, though to my ears both are forced. See note (20) for a further discussion.
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The issue is contested. Many predicativists claim that bare names have non-rigid readings. I discuss the issue extensively in Gray (2012). See also Geurts (1997), Bach (2002), Rothschild (2007), Elbourne (2005), Maier (2009), and Fara (2015a, b), Schoubye (2016a, b). It would be easy to alter the picture of the lexical rule if we wanted to allow for this.
My own intuitions are relatively liberal here. I can easily access a relativized reading of both bare names and familial nouns in constructions like this given the right background. A reviewer suggests that there is a disanalogy between bare names and bare familial nouns: it is possible to access relativized readings of bare familial nouns in other constructions, but relativized readings of names, if available, are marked. Contrast (22a) and (22b).
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(a) In every family, Grandma misbehaves.
(b) In every family, Alfred misbehaves.
Is it not easier to access a relativized reading of Grandma in (22a) than to access a relativized reading of Alfred in (22b)? The situation is complicated, and intuitions are not uniform here. But I agree with the reviewer that there might be a disanalogy here. Note, though, that in the right conditions, one can access relativized readings of bare names, consider (23).
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In every family with children named after the Osmonds, Donnie misbehaves.
It’s unclear to me that this is more marked than the relativized reading of Grandma in (22a). The data here is messy, and the conditions under which relativization is possible are complex. The availability of relativized readings depends in complex ways on the interaction between the descriptive content of a DP, the range of quantification, common ground in a context, and audience expectations. I won’t try to sort it out here [I try to make some sense of it in Gray (2012)]. Even granting the reviewer’s point, the main thrust of the analogy between bare names and bare familial nouns—the absence of a predicate in the syntax—would go through. We would simply have to posit different meanings for the derived individual-denoting expressions in the case of familial nouns and names.
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These readings can be a little tricky to access. The overwhelming interpretive tendency is not to assign a sentence a trivially false reading where other interpretations are possible. It’s easier to access the narrow-scope reading if we concoct a context in which the grandmother is a role-type description [in the sense of Rothschild (2007)]. Imagine, for example, that we are conducting a study and we need input from different demographic groups. Among our requirements is that we need at least one grandmother, and no more than 5 people who have had children. Our colleague organizes the participants, he finds a grandmother but we end up with 6 people who have had children. In attempt to defend his decision-making process, he utters (25b). He has said something trivially false. The important point here is that even relative to that scenario, a bare occurrence of grandma cannot receive the same interpretation.
This raises the question of how to treat restrictive adjectival modification with bare names where it is possible. Given the analysis below, the only way to do this would be to treat those adjective as having monstrous—in the Kaplanian sense—meanings. They would have to shift the context parameter of the bare name. This seems reasonable, given how forced the readings are. It’s worth mentioning that it’s likely that any principled account here would have to appeal to some metalinguistic mechanism. Certainly any non-predicativist account would.
Another possibility here, at least formally, would be a rule which generated a number of distinct individuals constants. In this way, predicativism could mimic the traditional philosophical account of bare occurrences of names. If we agree that bare names do not have a shiftable meaning—which not all predicativists do, see note (17)—than there is no knock-down reason not to go this route. Considerations of parsimony presumably tell strongly against it. Note that the situation is precisely analogous in the case of bare familial nouns.
A substantial issue here would be how to extend the lexical-rule approach to languages in which names do not appear bare. NDH-predicativists can simply say that these are languages in which the article which goes unpronounced in English (and other bare-name languages) is pronounced (as the definite article or a special preproprial article). What should lexical-rule predicativists say? The answer here depends on the interpretive possibilities for such languages. If the relevant uses of names—ones that would be translated as bare occurrences—license predicate anaphora then the lexical-rule predicativist should simply say that those language do not contain the relevant lexical rule. If normal referential uses of names in those language do not license predicate anaphora, then lexical-rule predicativists should hold that these languages do contain the relevant lexical rule. At first blush this might seem strange to posit a lexical rule which generates an individual-denoting expression which occurs with an overt determiner (but note that NDH predicativists would have no very obvious explanation here either). In fact, though, this would fit with one standard approach to the syntax of such languages, which treats the overt definite article as expletive [that is, as making no semantic or pragmatic contribution—see Longobardi (1994)]. For example, in their analysis of definiteness in modern Greek (one of the languages in which ordinary referential uses of names can occur with the overt determiner), (Lekakou and Szendrői 2012, p. 115) conclude that “all instances of the Greek definite determiner are semantically expletive. What looks like the source of definiteness [that is, the overt determiner] is semantically empty[...]” This proposal, developed independently of considerations involving names, is consistent with the view that overt determiner combines with an expression that is already individual-denoting.
Thanks to a reviewer for pressing this point.
In a sense, ‘metalinguistic’ is not a great term here, insofar as it might be taken to suggest that these views treat names as somehow quotative of other, more basic, expressions. This is clearly not what theorists have in mind. I stick with ‘metalinguistic’ to mark the fact that these theorists gloss the properties expressed by names in terms of linguistic ideas: being called, being given a name, being dubbed, etc.
Note that variabilists predict that bare occurrences are shiftable, at least via quantification. And some of them, hold that this is a desirable property. Cumming (2008) argues that we should treat the bare occurrence of Earnest as bound in (30).
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There is a gentleman in Hertfordshire by the name of ‘Ernest’. Ernest is engaged to two women.
If we accept this, we could fashion a version of the lexical which would deliver the appropriate kind of meaning.
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Thanks to Mahrad Almotahari, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on this paper. Thanks to Chris Kennedy, Michael Kremer, John Hawthorne, and Josef Stern for help with various ancestors of this paper.
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Gray, A. Lexical-rule predicativism about names. Synthese 195, 5549–5569 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1462-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1462-4