Speaker's reference, semantic reference and public reference
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Kripke (1977) views Donnellan’s (1966) misdescription cases as cases where semantic reference and speaker’s reference come apart. Such cases, however, are also cases where semantic reference conflicts with a distinct species of reference I call “public reference”, i.e. the object that the cues publicly available at the time of utterance indicate is the speaker’s referent of the utterance. This raises the question: do the misdescription cases trade on the distinction between semantic reference and speaker’s reference, or the distinction between semantic reference and public reference? I argue that Kripke’s own construal in terms of semantic reference and speaker’s reference is at best incomplete, and probably wrong. I also explain the general importance of the notion of ‘public reference’.
Description
CITATION: Smit, J. P. 2018. Speaker's reference, semantic reference and public reference. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 55:133-143, doi:10.5842/55-0-777.
The original publication is available at http://spilplus.journals.ac.za
The original publication is available at http://spilplus.journals.ac.za
Keywords
Misdescription cases, Kripke, Saul A., 1940-, Reference (Linguistics), Semantics (Philosophy), Description (Rhetoric), Public reference
Citation
Smit, J. P. 2018. Speaker's reference, semantic reference and public reference. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 55:133-143, doi:10.5842/55-0-777.