A linguistic account of singular terms

Autores

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18012/arf.v8iesp.60029

Palavras-chave:

singular terms, definiteness, uniqueness, reference, Vendler

Resumo

Vendler (1967b) discusses how we may linguistically recognize a singular term. Even though singular terms are relevant to Philosophy and not necessarily to Linguistics, it may be enriching to know what we can do to disambiguate such a term. Philosophically, singular terms are seen as singular definite descriptions which may be used to refer to a unique entity in the world. Vendler tried to provide a syntactic account of singular terms, and was not taken into account by philosophers. Linguistically speaking, a singular term will be a singular definite determiner phrase which may or may not correlate to something. We will show that a strictly syntactic account, as the one Vendler proposed, is deficient, and that it does not provide necessary and sufficient conditions to recognize a singular term. We will take into account Vendler’s spirit. We will use the advances in linguistics to explain how we may form a singular term, and provide syntactic-semantic conditions to recognize a singular term.

Downloads

Não há dados estatísticos.

Biografia do Autor

Ana Clara Polakof, Universidad de la República, Uruguay

Adjunct Professor at Instituto de Lingüística at Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación (UdelaR), Active researcher at Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (Uruguay). This research was possible thanks to the grant: FCE_3_2018_1_148810.

Referências

ABBOTT, B. Reference. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

BORER, H. Structuring sense: in name only. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

BORIK, O.; ESPINAL T. On definite kinds. Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes, v. 41, n. 1. p. 123-146, 2012.

BURGE, T. Truth and mass terms. Journal of Philosophy, v. 69, p. 263-282, 1972.

CHRISTOPHERSEN, P. The articles: a study of their theory and use in English. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. 1939.

CINQUE, G. Typological studies: word order and relative clauses. New York; London: Routledge, 2013.

DEVITT, M. The case for referential descriptions. In: REIMER, M.; BEZUIDENHOUT, A. (Eds.) Descriptions and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 234-260.

ENÇ, M. The semantics of specificity. Linguistic Inquiry, v. 22, n. 1, p. 01-25, 1991.

FREGE, G. On sense and reference. In: BLACK, M.; GEACH, P. (Eds.) Translations from the philosophical writings of Gottlob Frege, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960. p. 56-68.

FREGE G. On Concept and Object. In: BLACK, M.; GEACH, P. (Eds.) Translations from the philosophical writings of Gottlob Frege, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960. p. 42-56.

HALE, B. Singular Terms. In: MCGUINNESS B.; OLIVERI, G. (Eds.) The philosophy of Michael Dummett. Dordrecht: Springer, 1994. p. 268-272.

HARBOUR, D. Mass, non-singularity and augmentation. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, v. 49, p. 239-266, 2008.

HARRIS, Z. Co-occurrence and transformation in linguistic structure. Language, v. 33, n. 3, p. 283-340, 1957.

HEIM, I. The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. PhD Dissertation (Doctor of Philosophy), University of Massachusetts, 1982.

HINTIKKA, J. Are there nonexistent objects? Why not? But where are they? In: HINTIKKA, J. The logic of epistemology and the epistemology of logic: selected essays. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989. p. 37-44.

KAYNE, R. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974.

KRIFKA, M.; PELLETIER, F. J.; CARLSON, G.; TER MEULEN, A.; LINK, G.; CHIERCHIA, G. Genericity: an introduction. In: CARLSON, G.; PELLETIER, F. J. (Eds.) The generic book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. p. 01-124.

MARANTZ, A. No escape from syntax: don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon. In: DIMITRIADIS, A.; SIEGEL, L.; SUREK-CLARK, C.; WILLIAMS, A. (Eds) PWPL 4.2, Proceedings of the 21st Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 1997. p. 201-225.

MILSARK, G. Existential sentences in english. Cambridge, MA: MIT doctoral dissertation. 1974.

POLAKOF, A. Lo concreto y lo abstracto en nominalizaciones de adjetivales. Revista Signos. Estudios de Lingüística, v. 52, n. 100, p. 410-431, 2019.

POLAKOF, A. La semántica de los nombres abstractos. In: BÉRTOLA, C.; OGGIANI, C.; POLAKOF, A. (Eds.) Estudios de lengua y gramática. Montevideo: In press.

RUSSELL, B. On Denoting. Mind, v. 14, p. 479-493, 1905.

RUSSELL, B. Descriptions. In: MARTINICH, A. P. (Ed.) The philosophy of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. p. 208-214.

STIRTON, W. R. Singular term, subject and predicate. The Philosophical Quarterly, v. 50, n. 199, p. 191-207, 2000.

STRAWSON, P. On referring. Mind, v. 59, n. 235. p. 320-344, 1950.

VENDLER, Z. Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1967a.

VENDLER, Z. Singular terms. In: VENDLER, Z. Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1967. p. 147-171. (1967b)

VERGNAUD, J.R. French relative clauses. Ph.D. Dissertation, MIT, 1974.

VERGNAUD, J. R.; ZUBIZARRETA, M. L. The definite determiner and the inalienable constructions in French and in English. Linguistic Inquiry, v. 23, n. 4, p. 595-652, 1992.

WETZEL, L. Dummett's criteria for singular terms. Mind, v. 99, n. 394, p. 239-254, 1990.

Arquivos adicionais

Publicado

2021-07-01

Como Citar

Polakof, A. C. (2021). A linguistic account of singular terms. Aufklärung: Journal of Philosophy, 8(esp), p.133–144. https://doi.org/10.18012/arf.v8iesp.60029