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Empty Names and Pragmatic Implicatures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Fred Adams  and
Gary Fuller
Fred Adams
Affiliation:
University of Delaware, Newark, DE19716, USA
Gary Fuller
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI48859, USA
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Extract

What are the meanings of empty names such as ‘Vulcan,’ ‘Pegasus,’ and ‘Santa Claus’ in such sentences as ‘Vulcan is the tenth planet,’ ‘Pegasus flies,’ and especially ‘Santa Claus does not exist’?

Our view, developed in Adams et al. (1992, 1994, 1997, 2004), consists of a direct-reference account of the meaning of empty names in combination with a pragmatic-implicature account of why we have certain intuitions that seem to conflict with a direct-reference account.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 449 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2007

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