Chapter 8 - Personal and semantic reference

Summary

This chapter focuses on the personal reference (p-reference) in which the subject is a person or speaker, and on semantic reference (s-reference) in which the subject is a linguistic expression. It is confined to singular terms, including proper names, pronouns, definite descriptions (perhaps some indefinite ones), sobriquets, common count nouns such as 'table', 'horse', 'snowflake', mass nouns such as 'snow' and 'gold', and some common non-count nouns such as 'red' (or 'redness'). The word 'term' in the phrase 'singular term' can mislead. So as not to prejudge some crucial issues, the singulars may also be tokens or vehicles in thought contents, loosely known as concepts. The chapter talks about the bearers of truth-value. It uses the terms 'proposition' and 'utterance' loosely to designate them. The literature contains a number of terms fitting the target other than reference, including denotation, designation, and naming.