'Deferred reference' is the name given to the phenomenon whereby a speaker uses a singular term (for example, a pronoun or a name) to call the audience's attention to one object in order to make some other object the semantic value in context of the singular term. This book argues that non-referring contextually sensitive expressions exhibit a phenomenon very similar to deferred reference. Having introduced deferred reference and offered criticisms of existing accounts, which restrict deferred reference to pronomial expressions only, Jeffrey C. King offers a positive account that encompasses from singular terms and definite descriptions, and goes on to argue that tense, adverbs, gradable adjectives, and possessives also give rise to a phenomenon very much like deferred reference. Deferred reference is therefore shown simply to be a special case of this more general phenomenon.
Jeffrey C. King is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 1985 and his research focuses on philosophy of language, formal semantics, philosophical logic, and metaphysics. He has published five books and numerous articles.
Chapter 1: Nunberg's First Account of Deferred Reference Chapter 2: Nunberg's Second Account of Deferred Reference Chapter 3: "Descriptive readings" of Indexicals and Other Noun Phrases Chapter 4: Other Deferred Readings of Indexicals Chapter 5: Deferred Reference with Names Chapter 6: Deferred Semantic Values in Context
'Deferred reference' is the name given to the phenomenon whereby a speaker uses a singular term (for example, a pronoun or a name) to call the audience's attention to one object in order to make some other object the semantic value in context of the singular term. This book argues that non-referring contextually sensitive expressions exhibit a phenomenon very similar to deferred reference. Having introduced deferred reference and offered criticisms of existing accounts, which restrict deferred reference to pronomial expressions only, Jeffrey C. King offers a positive account that encompasses from singular terms and definite descriptions, and goes on to argue that tense, adverbs, gradable adjectives, and possessives also give rise to a phenomenon very much like deferred reference. Deferred reference is therefore shown simply to be a special case of this more general phenomenon.
Jeffrey C. King is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 1985 and his research focuses on philosophy of language, formal semantics, philosophical logic, and metaphysics. He has published five books and numerous articles.
Chapter 1: Nunberg's First Account of Deferred Reference Chapter 2: Nunberg's Second Account of Deferred Reference Chapter 3: "Descriptive readings" of Indexicals and Other Noun Phrases Chapter 4: Other Deferred Readings of Indexicals Chapter 5: Deferred Reference with Names Chapter 6: Deferred Semantic Values in Context