Speaker’s Referent and Semantic Referent in Interpretive Interaction (original) (raw)

An Analysis of Kripke's Definition of Speaker's Referent

The Jahangirnagar Review, Part-C, 2020

Abstract- Kripke admits that Donnellan’s distinction between two different uses of definite descriptions are of great importance. But, he denies that this distinction can pose any threat to Russell’s theory of definite descriptions. Kripke distinguishes between semantic reference and speaker’s reference by using Gricean apparatus and analyzes Donnellan’s referential -attributive distinction to show that the referential use of definite descriptions is not a concern for a unitary theory of definite descriptions. This paper analyzes Kripke’s definition of speaker’s referent and the Gricean account of meaning to argue that Kripke’s definition of speaker’s referent is inconsistent with the Gricean account. Though, Kripke has claimed that he has followed Gricean notion of speaker’s meaning while defining speaker’s referent, his definition fails to include the role of the hearer or audience in the process of determining speaker’s reference. A new definition of speaker’s referent has also been provided here which is consistent with the Gricean account of speaker’s meaning.

Speaker's Reference, Semantic Reference, and the Gricean Project. Some Notes from a Non-Believer

In "Croatian Journal of Philosophy", XIX, 57, pp. 423-448, 2019

In this paper, I focus on the alleged distinction between speaker's reference and semantic reference. I begin by discussing Saul Kripke's notion of speaker's reference and the theoretical roles it is supposed to play, arguing that they do not justify the claim that reference comes in two different sorts and highlighting that Kripke's own definition makes the notion incompatible with the nowadays widely endorsed Gricean project, which aims at explaining semantic reference in terms of speaker's reference. I then examine an alternative account of speaker's reference offered by Michael Devitt within his causal theory and express some doubts about its suitability for explaining proper name semantic reference. From all this, I conclude that there is at least some tension between Kripke's chain of communication picture and the attempt to explain (Griceanly, so to say) semantic properties in terms of speakers' mental states.

Conversational Implicature And The Referential Use of Descriptions

Philosophical Studies, 2005

This paper enters the continuing fray over the semantic significance of Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction. Some hold that the distinction is at bottom a pragmatic one: i.e., that the difference between the referential use and the attributive use arises at the level of speaker's meaning rather the level of sentence-or utterance-meaning. This view has recently been challenged by Marga Reimer and Michael Devitt, both of whom argue that the fact that descriptions are regularly, that is standardly, used to refer defeats the pragmatic approach. The present paper examines a variety of issues bearing on the regularity in question: whether the regularity would arise in a Russellian language, whether the regularity is similar to the standard use of complex demonstratives, and whether the pragmatic approach founders on the problem of dead metaphors. I argue that the pragmatic approach can readily explain all of these facets of the referential use of descriptions.

Referential Descriptions and Conversational Implicatures

European journal of analytic philosophy, 2007

The standard Gricean defense of russell in the face of referential uses of descriptions has been to claim that these uses are conversational implicatures. My argument in "The case for referential Descriptions" focused on showing that these uses are not particularized implicatures. I now adapt and develop this argument to show that they are not generalized implicatures nor otherwise pragmatic. I consider and reject bach's contrary proposal in "Descriptions: Points of reference. " Finally I look critically at Neale's new view in "This, That, and the Other" that the debate between referentialists and russellians is "the product of a powerful illusion. "

Speaker's Reference, Descriptions and Information Structure

Tijdschrift Voor Diergeneeskunde, 1998

The notion of information developed in systems of dynamic semantics is applied in an analysis of the referential interpretation of de nite descriptions, and the speci c interpretation of inde nite ones. A Russellian treatment of descriptions is upgraded with the dynamic semantic notion of a discourse referent, and this enables a combination of contextually given information with information which is properly semantic. The analysis is sharpened by the addition of a partition of utterances into a ground and a focus part. The two extensions su ce to account for the most important features of situations which involve the referential use of expressions in a both semantically and pragmatically satisfactory way. A byproduct is a rudimentary analysis of negative existential statements involving names.

On the referential ambiguity of personal pronouns and its pragmatic consequences

Pragmatics, 2016

Canonical linguistic theory postulates a one-on-one referential link between linguistic elements and agents, experiencers, cognizers or patients of certain actions, beliefs, states etc. in the world. Likewise, personal pronouns and person marking through verb morphology have often been described as having a one-on-one referential link with an (interaction) participant. As with all deictic expressions, interpretation of personal pronouns is crucially dependent on the context (e.g. I referring to the speaker, you to the hearer). However, Bühler's well-known concept of Deixis am Phantasma (1934) already shows that reference can be established to items beyond the immediate discourse situation, with interlocutors jointly constructing reference even to hypothetical, future-oriented or counterfactual discourse scenarios. Reference, especially pronominal reference, is not always established easily, as the vast literature on referentiality in several linguistic and philosophical disciplines attests (to name but a few recent contributions: Abbott 2010 for an overview of mostly semantic conceptualizations of reference, Kibrik 2011 for a recent study on reference in discourse, and of course Siewierska 2004 for an in-depth discussion of person reference). Most contributions either focus on third person references (singular or plural, henceforth, 3sg and 3pl; e.g. Borthen 2010, Cabredo Hofherr 2003, and most articles in Enfield/Stivers 2007), or they discuss the inclusion and/or exclusion of the speaker in a group referred to using 1st person plural forms (henceforth, 1pl). Helmbrecht (2015) does offer a more general typology of non-prototypical readings of various persons. In languages without a morphological inclusive/exclusive distinction, the pragmatics of inclusive or exclusive readings have been analyzed as well (e.g. Temmerman 2008; Scheibman 2002 & 2004). On the other hand, reference to singular speaker and hearer (1sg and 2sg) is typically portrayed as unproblematic from a referential point of view, though attention has been drawn to the existence of different participant statuses (Goffman 1979; Ducrot's 1984 polyphony analysis; Halliday 1994). In order to complete our view of the use of speaker and hearer reference, this volume focuses on some uses of the 1 st and 2 nd person (singular as well as plural) where the canonical adscription of pronominal reference is 'violated' by the speaker for pragmatic reasons. This results in referential ambiguity of personal pronouns, which is understood in this volume as uses where the person being referred to cannot be pinned down unequivocally. Such uses can be exploited by interlocutors to their conversational advantage, but an important drawback of referentially ambiguous forms is, of course, the danger of being misunderstood. We want to discuss which linguistic strategies are employed by interlocutors to ensure conversational success and to avoid misunderstandings caused by referential ambiguity.

Speakers, listeners and communication

1995

Gillian Brown's book presents a careful argument for viewing the interpretation of referring expressions and definite expressions by listeners as a satisficing process. That is, listeners attempt to find an interpretation that is adequate for their present purposes, rather than one that is correct with respect to what the speaker might have intended. The author supports her claim with examples taken from a series of carefully controlled experiments that she and her colleagues have conducted over the last 14 years.