Abstract
This paper tackles the question as to whether or not the referential-attributive (RA) distinction has any information-structural significance. That is, does this distinction mark a contrast between different ways a speaker might package the informational content of utterances that use definite descriptions? Furthermore, are there any overt markers of this distinction? In this paper I focus on referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions, and leave the issue of indefinites for another occasion. I answer both of the above questions negatively. While definite descriptions have an information-structural role to play, the RA distinction does not. Moreover, after examining several potential candidates for markers of the RA distinction, I conclude that there are no such overt markers. This is in fact to be expected if one accepts my proposal to see referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions as having the same general function, namely to single out something as a center of interest. The difference is simply that referential uses focus on role bearers, whereas attributive uses focus on role properties. Which of these the speaker intends will depend on context and hearers will have to rely on contextual assumptions to recover the intended message.
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Notes
- 1.
There are linguists who have addressed the issue of the RA distinction, such as Rouchota (1992). However, they tend to debate philosophers on the philosophers’ turf, which I have indicated does not engage with issues about the information structure component of language. Fretheim (2010) is an exception.
- 2.
I suggest that we would need to make at least the following distinctions: The matter of interest might be one of long standing or one that is conversation-specific. And it might be a latent interest or one that has been explicitly addressed in the prior conversation. Since these two distinctions crosscut one another, there are four possible types of standing interest. The latter distinction (latent vs. explicit) is analogous to the distinction that has been made between hearer-old vs. discourse-old information. The notion of a standing interest and the notion of old information are not synonymous, since not all old information amounts to something of standing interest.
- 3.
Russellians would of course say that attributive uses are to be given a quantificational analysis. However, in the text I am not talking about the correct semantics for definite descriptions but about the pragmatic function of such descriptions when used attributively. I have already expressed skepticism that the mere fact that descriptions can be used attributively settles anything regarding the semantics of definites. But debating this issue here would take me too far afield.
- 4.
- 5.
To get an attributive use of (4), imagine a scenario in which the US President has declared a competition to find the most enterprising 5th grader. After many elimination rounds, the finalists have been flown to Washington DC and are assembled on the Rose Garden lawns. The President makes an announcement as to who the winner will be: “The first boy in line will get the prize”. There is a frantic scramble as the boys fight to be first in line. The President’s utterance here seems to be focused on a role property rather than a role occupier.
- 6.
For a cartoon about garden path sentences, go to http://www.qwantz.com/ and search for comic number 204.
- 7.
Kent Bach has in several places, e.g., (Bach 2004), railed against the idea of a discourse referent. Bach appears to believe that discourse referents have a different ontological status from “real” ones, existing only in discourse representation structures rather than being worldly entities. However, this is not so. While discourse referents are indeed represented in discourse models, they may be real-world entities (if the discourse is about the real world). We need to distinguish the entity from its representation. This is equally true of a referent in Bach’s favored sense. Even if we restrict ourselves to real world entities in our talk (although it isn’t at all clear that we in fact do restrict ourselves in this way or why we should be so restricted), Bach still has to grant that these real world entities have to be cognitively represented somehow for us to think and talk about them. We don’t use the entities themselves as discourse representations.
- 8.
And of course there is always the need for additional background information to fully understand what the speaker said. In the mayor case, it is knowledge about the tasks of a mayor of a small town. In the case of the first boy in line, context is needed to understand where the head of the line starts. Perhaps the President used a hand gesture to indicate the head of the line. Or perhaps a spot had already been determined in advance by the placement of a sign.
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Bezuidenhout, A. (2013). The (in)Significance of the Referential-Attributive Distinction. In: Capone, A., Lo Piparo, F., Carapezza, M. (eds) Perspectives on Pragmatics and Philosophy. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01011-3_15
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