A Problem for Predicativism about Names
Aidan Gray
University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract
Predicativism about names - the view that names are metalinguistic predicates - has yet
to confront a foundational issue: how are names represented in the lexicon? I provide a
positive characterization of the structure of the lexicon from the point of view Predicativism. I proceed to raise a problem for Predicativism on the basis of that characterization, focusing on cases in which individuals have names which are spelled the same way
but pronounced differently. Finally, I introduce two potential strategies for solving the
problem, and offer reasons not to be optimistic about either.
1
P REDICATIVISM
What is the relation between Helen as it appears in (1 a) and (1 b)?
(1)
(a) Helen grew up near Avignon.
(b) Many Helens are from France.
Standard approaches to names treat the occurrence in (1 a) as the articulation of a lexicalized
individual-denoting expression and do not tend to worry about the occurrence in (1 b). An
alternative approach treats the occurrence in (1 b) as revelatory of the name’s lexical meaning. According to this position, call it Predicativism1 , names are predicates in the lexicon.
A name expresses a name-bearing property. Helen, for instance, expresses the property of
being named ‘Helen’.2 Predicativists explain occurrences like (1 a), in which a name appears
to function as a singular term (call this a ‘bare’ occurrence), by positing an unpronounced
definite determiner in the syntax - thus treating the name-predicate as a constituent of a complex term.3 The result is that a bare occurrence of a name refers to a contextually salient
individual who satisfies the name-predicate.
I will argue that the basic assumption of Predicativism - that predicative interpretations of
names are the articulation of lexicalized metalinguistic predicates - faces a fundamental challenge. There is reason to think that Predicativism is, in principle, unable to offer a coherent
picture of the individuation of such predicates.
1 A non-exhaustive list of work in support of Predicativism: (Sloat, 1969), (Burge, 1973), (Bach, 1981,
2002), (Katz, 1990), (Larson and Segal, 1995, 355), (Geurts, 1997), (Elbourne, 2005, Chp 6), (Matushansky,
2006, 2008), (Ghomeshi and Massam, 2009), (Fara, 2011, 2014). For a recent work critical of Predicativism
see (Jeshion, 2014).
2 I use bold type to refer to expressions and single quotes to refer to signs (more on which below). When
disambiguation is called for, I will call ‘Alfred’ a name and Alfred a name-predicate.
3 See (Sloat, 1969), (Elbourne, 2005, Chp 6), (Ghomeshi and Massam, 2009), (Fara, 2014).
A Problem for Predicativism
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T HE NAME S CHEMA
Let’s start by looking at the way that Predicativists represent the meaning of names. Looking
at the work of Predicativists, one finds clauses like (2 a-2 b).
(2)
(a) x satisfies Alfred iff x is called ‘Alfred’
(b) x satisfies Helen iff x is called ‘Helen’4
What do such clauses reveal about the meaning of names? Contrast (2 a,2 b) with run-of-themill homophonic meaning clauses, in which the meaning of an expression in an object language is given in terms of the same expression in the metalanguage, for example in (3 a,3 b).
(3)
(a) x satisfies red iff x is red
(b) x satisfies blue iff x is blue
(2 a,2 b), in contrast to (3 a,3 b), do not involve the use of the object-language expression on
the right-hand side of the clause. Rather they involve the mention of that expression. These
clauses offer substantive characterizations of the meaning of Alfred and Helen. What they
reveal is that one satisfies the predicate Alfred by standing in a certain relation to the sign
‘Alfred’; and one satisfies the predicate Helen by standing in the same relation to the sign
‘Helen’.
Detecting a pattern, Predicativists posit the following schema.
Name Schema (NS) x satisfies ψ iff x is called ϕ
One gets an instance of this schema by replacing ‘ψ ’ with an expression which denotes a
predicate, and replacing ‘ϕ’ with an expression which denotes the sign which is the articulation of that predicate.5 Unlike the homophonic schema, this schema represents a substantive
feature of the meaning of its instances. It represents the claim that names have a reflexive
meaning - to satisfy a name-predicate, an individual must stand in the specified relation to
the articulation of that predicate (Bach, 2002, pg 78). Common nouns are not instances of the
schema - being called ‘horse’ is not enough to make something a horse; being called ‘Alfred’
is enough to make something an Alfred (Bach, 2002, pg 76).
For our purposes we can think of a predicate as a set of features. The features encode the
linguistic properties of the predicate - we need (at least) a syntactic feature, an articulation
feature, and a semantic feature. The syntactic feature determines which constructions an
4 See,
e.g.,(Fara, 2011, pg 496) (Bach, 2002, pg 96) (Matushansky, 2006, pg 288), (Elbourne, 2005, pg 170),
(Geurts, 1997, pg 319). The details of the schema differ from author to author - in particular with regard to what
relation is employed on the right-hand side (called, bears the name, is conventionally referred to as, etc). The
topic of the paper is not how to understand this relation, so I will abstract away from these differences. A worry
about this strategy which I will not address here is that it is viciously circular (Kripke, 1980. 68). Predicativists
have responded to this claim - see (Bach, 1987, 159-161), (Katz, 1990, 39-41),(Geurts, 1997, 326),(Bach, 2002,
83),(Elbourne, 2005, 177), and (Gray, 2014).
5 Though this is the dominant way of understanding the schema, there are alternatives. Fara (2011, pg
496) holds that the name is used (rather than mentioned) on the right hand side of the schema. The argument
developed below applies to Fara’s approach, to the extent that it is committed to a set of stable, lexicalized
name-predicates. But the possible responses will be different given the different structure of her account. The
dialectic of the paper, then, is restricted to addressing the standard version of Predicativism.
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expression can occur in. The articulation feature determines how it is spoken or written - we
will think of it as a pair of an orthographic and phonological type (call this pair, a ‘sign’).
The semantic feature determines how its presence in a complex expression contributes to the
meaning of that expression - think of it as a function from individuals to truth-values. So we
can identify the predicate Alfred with the features in (4).
(4)


CAT EGORY
Name
 SEMANT IC
λ x : x is called < /’AlfrId/, a_ l_ f_ r_ e_ d > 
ART ICULAT ION < /’AlfrId/, a_ l _ f _ r_ e_ d >
Note that the sign < /’AlfrId/, a_ l _ f _ r_ e_ d > appears twice in (4). In its role as
articulation feature, it encodes how the predicate is pronounced when spoken and spelled
when written. As it occurs in the semantic feature, it captures the fact that an individual
satisfies the predicate in virtue of standing in the being called relation to that sign. This dual
role for the sign is the structure posited by NS.
3
T HE NAME S CHEMA AS A LEXICAL RULE
The idea that names instantiate NS is common among Predicativists. What does it reveal
about names that we can capture a substantive aspect of their meaning with NS? It is presumably not a coincidence, from the point of view of Predicativism, that all names instantiate
NS. Bach says that the schema makes a “generic claim about names” and that it “applies to
names as a class”(2002, pg 76).
So we would like to make sense of the idea that instantiating NS is constitutive or definitive of being a name. The most straightforward way would be to think of NS as expressing
a generative lexical rule. We could think of the members of the category name as generated
in the lexicon by NS - this would be to treat the schema as a rule which takes a sign s and
returns a predicate which is articulated as s and means called s.
The idea would be that a speaker’s competence with the class of names is structured in
a way that her competence with, say, the class of common nouns is not. Her competence
with some particular name-predicate can be factored into two components - the fact that she
(tacitly) knows that one can generate a name-predicate by applying NS to a sign, and the fact
that she knows that a particular sign is used as a name in her linguistic community. Bach
writes:“[...] it is in virtue of one’s knowledge of the general category of proper names that
one knows of any particular name that when used in a sentence [...] it expresses the property
of bearing that name. Linguistically, all one needs to know about a proper name is how to
spell it and how to pronounce it.” (2002, pg 76)
Though the lexical rule approach seems to be what Predicativists have in mind, it cannot
be maintained. To look ahead: the lexical rule approach assumes that there a stable set of
distinctions which can be drawn using name-predicates. In fact, which distinctions can be
drawn using a name-predicate depends on whether the predicate is articulated in speech or in
writing.
Consider two individuals, A and B, whose names are written and pronounced as follows:
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A
B
Draft for Budapest conference on names
Written
Pronounced
j_ e_ a_ n.
/dZi:n/
j_ e_ a_ n.
/Zã/
A and B spell their name the same way but pronounce it differently (for the record, the
same problem could be generated by considering names which are pronounced the same
but spelled differently). Should the Predicativist say that there is a name-predicate which
expresses what A and B have in common? The most straightforward interpretation of the
picture developed above would answer the question in the negative. We were treating signs
as phonological/orthographic pairs, and holding that distinct signs generate distinct namepredicates. Given that the pairs < /dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n >, < /Zã/, j_ e_ a_ n > are distinct,
we predict that two distinct predicates are generated from NS:
(5)


CAT EGORY
Name
 SEMANT IC
λ x : x is called < /dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n > 
ART ICULAT ION < /dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n >
(6)


CAT EGORY
Name
 SEMANT IC
λ x : x is called < /Zã/, j_ e_ a_ n > 
ART ICULAT ION < /Zã/, j_ e_ a_ n >
The predicates specified in (5) and (6) are homographs. Thus the sign j_ e_ a_ n should
be ambiguous with respect to them. This, in turn, would predict that one cannot use j_ e_ a_ n
to pick out what A and B have in common . But this prediction is not borne out. If A and B
each fail an exam, I can truly report the results by writing (7).
(7)
Two J _ e_ a_ n_ s failed the exam.
6
The utterance is neither anomalous nor zeugmatic (make sure you are imagining the sentence
written, don’t pronounce it to yourself). It straightforwardly describes the situation. But
according to the proposal under consideration, this should not be possible.7
Perhaps Predicativists should alter the picture to allow that there is a predicate, generated
by NS, which expresses what A and B have in common. Perhaps NS does not take the pair
6A
note about notation: Going forward it is important to distinguish written utterances from spoken ones,
and different pronunciations and spellings from each other. Accordingly, example sentences which involve concatenation symbols (as in (7)) are used to represent written utterance-types. I use the concatenation device only
to indicate the spelling used for the relevant word (they do not represent utterances which contain concatenation symbols). Example sentences involving phonetic symbols (as in (9 a) or (9 b)) are used to represent spoken
utterance-types. I use the phonetic symbols to indicate the pronounciation of the relevant word.
7 A different case makes the same point: Suppose our only knowledge of A and B is through text-based
interaction on the internet. We have had many interactions with each online, have had many occasions to
make written generalizations about them using their names, and have no inkling that they pronounce their name
differently. When we meet them in person, and discover the difference in pronunciation, will our perspective on
those earlier utterances change? Will we come to think of them as false (or anomalous in some way)? It seems
unlikely.
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<j_ e_ a_ n , /dZi:n/> as input, and return a predicate with the meaning called <j_ e_ a_ n ,
/dZi:n/>. Perhaps it takes j_ e_ a_ n as an input, and returns a predicate with the meaning
called j_ e_ a_ n. The upshot would be that NS would generate the predicate (8).
(8)


CAT EGORY
Name
 SEMANT IC
λ x : x is called j_ e_ a_ n 
ART ICULAT ION <?, j_ e_ a_ n >
Perhaps this predicate appears in (7) to truly report A and B failing the exam. But this
won’t do either. If there is a predicate which both A and B satisfy, it would be odd if we
could not pronounce that predicate (in addition to inscribing it). But could I report the same
scenario (A and B failing the exam) in speech with a name-predicate? If I try to produce a
spoken equivalent of (7), I have a choice. I can produce (9 a) or (9 b).
(9)
(a) Two /dZi:ns/ failed the exam.
(b) Two /Zã/ failed the exam.
Either way I would say something false.8 Either way I pronounce the name, it is false that
two people who bear that name failed the exam. A does not bear the name that is pronounced
/Zã/ and B does not bear the name that is pronounced /dZi:n/.
So if the truth of my inscription of (7) shows that there is a name-predicate which is true
of both A and B, the impossibility of conveying the same information with a name-predicate
in speech shows there is no way to pronounce it - note the question mark in the articulation
feature of (8). The upshot of the example is that there is no way to use a name-predicate in
speech to convey what A and B have in common.9
The basic idea behind the lexical rule approach was that we could think of the class of
name-predicates as being generated as follows: given a sign s there is a predicate articulated
as s with the meaning called s. But there is no conception of a sign which makes this come
out true. If we are thinking of signs as phonological/orthographic pairs, then there are namepredicates which express properties which don’t consist in standing in relations to signs: there
is a name-predicate which expresses what A and B have in common, which is not a relation
to a phonological/orthographic pair. On the other hand, if we’re thinking of a sign simply as
8 Judgments
here seem to be robust. I’ve presented this work to a number of audiences and have not encountered any dissenting intuitions. Having said that, one can imagine contexts in which the situation is not
so straightforward. Suppose a speaker speaks English with a French accent, and tends to call A, and other
similarly-named people, /Zã/. In such a case it might be natural to think of an utterance of (9 a), produced by
him, as true (though intuitions here are not entirely clear). So perhaps there is some context-sensitivity here. See
section (4.2) for a discussion of why the structure of Predicativism makes appeals context-sensitivity difficult to
incorporate.
9 Note, the claim is not that it would be impossible to convey the same information in speech, merely that
it is impossible to convey the same information in speech by using a name-predicate. One could certainly say
something like (10)
(10)
Two people who spell their names ‘j’ - ‘e’ - ‘a’ - ‘n’ failed the exam.
But that would not be too employ a name predicate (people who spell their names ‘j’ - ‘e’ - ‘a’ - ‘n’ does not
satisfy NS). Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for helpful remarks here.
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an orthographic or phonological feature (that is, as one or other, not as a pair), then it seems
like a name-predicate which expresses the property of being called by a sign can only be
articulated in the medium of that sign: there is no way to use a name-predicate in speech to
express the property of being called j_ e_ a_ n.
4
U NPROMISING RESPONSES
4.1 M ULTIPLYING PREDICATES
We ended the last section with the claim: if there is a name-predicate which expresses what
A and B have in common (the property of being called j_ e_ a_ n), then it can only be articulated in writing and not in speech. Perhaps the Predicativist should simply bite the bullet
here and accept this conclusion. We could accept that NS generates predicates which can be
articulated in only one medium (either in speech or in writing). That is, it generates a predicate which is spelled j_ e_ a_ n which is true of A and B and a predicate pronounced /dZi:n/
which is true of A but not B.
First note the strangeness of this response. It claims that the lexicon contains expressions
which can only be articulated in one medium. This is not an inconceivable situation but
it would certainly be surprising given the rhetoric of Predicativism. Predicativists tend to
tout the explanatory simplicity gained by assimilating the lexical type of names to that of
common nouns. But if this strategy is correct, than names are substantially different than
common nouns, and substantially different than Predicativists have assumed that they were.
More substantially, multiplying predicates opens up an explanatory gap in the Predicativist approach. The predicate-multiplying Predicativist (PMP) represents the extensions of
transliterative pairs of name-predicates as independent (I use “transliterative pairs”, somewhat infelicitously, to refer to name-predicates whose articulation features map onto each
other in the spelling-to-pronunciation scheme of some language). If spoken and written
name-predicates are distinct, it should be possible for an individual to bear a name without
bearing any transliteration of that name. That is, it should be possible satisfy /’AlfrId/ and
j_ e_ a_ n without satisfying either a_ l_ f_ r_ e_ d or /dZi:n/. We do not, in fact, see this.
The extension of name predicates is constrained by the transliteration rules of the languages
in which name-predicates are used. Why should this be?
The transliterative rules of a language constrain what orthographic/phonological pairs
can occur as articulation features of lexical items in that language. But the PMP holds that
name-predicates are only associated with either an orthographic or phonological type but
not both. So no rule which constrains the phonological/orthographic pairs which can occur
as articulation features of lexical items can make any difference to the extension of namebearing predicates. The PMP must admit that nothing linguistically contrains the distribution
of name-bearing to prevent non-transliterative name-pairs.
This isn’t to say that the PMP can offer no story here. They could hold that although
transliteration rules primarily operate as constraints on possible lexical items, they can also
operate in an independent way - as constraints on the distribution of name-bearing properties.
It is not clear exactly how this would work - mostly because Predicativists do not typically
offer much of a story as to what determines the distribution of name-bearing properties. This
approach would be significantly ad hoc in that it posits two distinct roles for transliterative
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rules where, prima facie, there is only one. Non-Predicativists can hold that the reason that
we don’t see names which don’t transliteratively match is precisely the same reason that we
don’t see common nouns which don’t transliteratively match. The PMP cannot hold that.
The lexicon also contains other information about names in a way that makes the multiplication envisioned here implausible. Take, for example, the distinction in English between
names which can appear bare and those which cannot. Most names can appear bare - recall
the occurrence of Helen in (1 b). But there are isolated exceptions. Names for cities can
typically appear bare, but the Hague is an exception. Names for mountains typically appear
bare but the Matterhorn is an exception. There is no apparent logic to these patterns and it
seems that the only way to capture them is as basic lexical features. Recall that Predicativism
holds that bare occurrences are the result of a morphological rule which allows the definite
determiner to go unarticulated in certain syntactic configurations involving names. To capture the individual exceptions to this morphological rule, we need to encode in the lexicon
that these names are exempted from this morphological rule.
But now if there are two distinct expressions in the lexicon, one name-predicate true of
things called h_ a_ g_ u_ e and one true of things called /’heIg/ , it should be possible that
this morphological exception is encoded in one but not the other. But nothing like this is
attested. The determiner is either articulated in both speech and writing or in neither. This
gives us strong reason to think that there is simply one lexical item. If there were two lexical
items the presence of the determiner in speech and writing could vary independently. This is
not attested.
Multiplying predicates opens up a number of new degrees of freedom in the Predicativist
approach which, given they are not attested, must simply be closed again by ad hoc stipulation. This is not to say that there is no possible response for the Predicativst but only that the
available responses add a significant degree of theoretical complexity to their approach.
4.2 C ONTEXT-S ENSITIVITY
A more promising strategy would be to try to capture the relevant interpretations by adding
an element of context-sensitivity to each name-predicate. We could think of the meaning of
a name-predicate as being given by a clause like (11).
(11) x satisfies Jean in a context C iff ∃s ∈ Rc (< /dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n >) & x is called s
Here Rc is a contextually-supplied similarity relation - a function from signs to sets of signs.
This captures the idea that features of the context determine which signs count as relevantly
similar to < /dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n >. An individual would satisfy Jean in a context, just in case
that individual is called by a sign which was relevantly similar to < /dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n >.
To make this work, we need to hold that a context in which the name is spoken is one
which makes the relevant dimension of similarity phonological similarity, and that a context
in which the name is written makes the relevant dimension of similarity orthographic similarity. So in a context in which Jean is written, R(< /dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n >) will be the set of
signs which have j_ e_ a_ n as their orthographic element. This would do the trick, but is
ultimately unsatisfying.
First, note that this proposal maintains the original interpretation of NS, and so is committed to distinct predicates corresponding to the signs < /dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n > and
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< /Zã/, j_ e_ a_ n >. So in addition to a predicate whose meaning is given by (11) - call it
Jean1 , it is committed to the existence of a distinct predicate whose meaning is given by (12)
- call it Jean2
(12) x satisfies Jean2 in a context C iff ∃s ∈ Rc (< /Zã/, j_ e_ a_ n >) & x is called s
But now consider an inscription of j_ e_ a_ n. Any such inscription must either be an articulation of Jean1 or of Jean2 . But which predicate it is an articulation of will have no effect
on the truth-conditions of the utterance. Either way the name-predicate will be interpreted as
being true of individuals who spell their name j_ e_ a_ n. So it’s unclear what might determine which predicate is, in fact, articulated in a given utterance. Nothing about the speaker’s
communicative intentions could distinguish the two options.
This is an odd situation. The theory predicts that there must be a fact of the matter about
the question, but cannot offer any sense of how that fact might be determined. But this is
far from a knock-down argument. Other seemingly well-supported semantic theories are
in a similar situation. Take, for example, a theory that explains the ambiguities associated
with multiple quantifiers in terms of scope. A standard version of the approach which seeks
to explain scope possibilities in terms of quantifier raising predicts that surface forms are
structurally ambiguous, even in cases where the two potential structures are synonymous.
So, for example, the theory predicts that an utterance of (13 a), should have the logical form
of either (13 b) or (13 c).
(13) (a) Every philosopher admires every linguist.
(b) [Every philosopher]x [Every linguist]y x admires y
(c) [Every linguist]y [Every philosopher]x x admires y
But the difference in structure makes no difference to the meaning of the uttered sentence, so
it is hard to see what in a speech situation might make it the case that the uttered sentence had
one of the two forms. But this sort of worry doesn’t seem to have been felt to be pressing.
Neale, for example, raises the issue, and is clearly unworried by it (1990, pp 119,152.).
But there is a difference between the present case and the case of quantifier-raising. The
relative scope of two quantifier phrases can sometimes have a semantic effect. The choice between two co-spelled name-predicates never has a semantic effect when the name-predicate is
written. Something stronger can be said. Imagine another individual, C , who spells his name
g_ e_ n_ e and pronounces it /dZi:n/ (his name is pronounced the same as A’s but spelled
differently). On the proposal we are considering, there will then be a context-sensitive predicate whose articulation feature is </dZi:n/, g_ e_ n_ e >, call it Jean3 Note than in speech,
Jean3 and Jean1 will have the same extension. So, in speech there will be a semantically
indistinguishable choice between Jean3 and Jean1 , and in writing there will be a semantically indistinguishable choice between Jean1 and Jean2 . So whenever one of these namepredicates is used, there will be a semantically indistinguishable alternative, and this is a
striking difference with the case of quantifier scope.
This strongly suggests that the proposal simply contains an extraneous level of structure.
Consider the epistemic situation of the audience according to the above proposal. Suppose
a speaker produces an inscription of j_ e_ a_ n. If the audience concludes that a namepredicate is being articulated, they must first identify which predicate it is, either Jean1 or
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Jean2 . Having done that, the speaker must identify the contextually salient similarity relation
- which given the fact the predicate was inscribed, would be orthographic similarity. This,
then, would make it the case that predicate would be true of individuals named j_ e_ a_ n.
Presented this way, it is clear that there is a completely unnecessary stage in the process.
What point is there in the stage at which one predicate rather than the other is identified? The
end result is the same: a predicative occurrence of j_ e_ a_ n is true of individuals named
j_ e_ a_ n.
One final note about this proposal: it relies on a completely stipulative understanding of the contextual similarity relation. For the proposal to work, the fact that Jean is
written must be enough to make it the case that a sign counts as relevantly similar to <
/dZi:n/, j_ e_ a_ n > just in case it has j_ e_ a_ n as its orthographic component. But why
should this be? If the contextual similarity relation captures the dimensions of similarity
which are relevant given the purpose of a conversation, why should the orthographic/phonological
dimensions always trump? Suppose in a context we are discussing which names are my
favourite. Wouldn’t that make two names similar, in the contextually relevant way, just in
case they were alike with respect to my tastes? Suppose that ‘Alfred’ and ‘Helen’ are my
favourite names. This would predict that in such a context, a predicative occurrence of Alfred would be true of individuals named either ‘Alfred’ or ‘Helen’ (because the contextual
similarity relation would classify ‘Helen’ as relevantly similar to ‘Alfred’). But this is clearly
not a possible interpretation of a predicative occurrence of Alfred. Appeal to a contextual
similarity relation is a powerful device, and anyone who wanted to pursue this line would owe
us a story about why this approach did not massively overgenerate. The only route available
here would be to treat the context-sensitivity as a kind of “automatic indexicality” in which
the only feature of the context which was relevant to the extension of a name-predicate would
be whether that predicate was written or spoken. This reinforces the previous argument, that
the Predicativist must posit a range of powerful machinery working in the background to capture a simple fact: that a name-predicate articulated with a sign s is true of individuals who
bear the name s. As we will see in the next section, non-Predicativists have a straightforward
way of capturing this connection.
5
U PSHOT
No doubt there is more to say about potential Predicativist responses. I haven’t offered a
knock-down argument against either approach above, and other approaches are possible.10
I’ll end by offering a general reason to suggest that the phenomenon tells against any version of Predicativism. The assumption causing the problem here is that predicative interpretations of names are lexicalized - that in the interpretive route from an inscription of j_ e_ a_ n
to the property called j_ e_ a_ n speakers must interpret the inscription of j_ e_ a_ n as the
articulation of some lexical item. The problem raised above suggests that no plausible picture
of the lexicon could underlie this assumption.
But this lexical assumption is exactly what the standard approach to names denies. That
approach holds that names, in the lexicon, are individual-denoting expressions. Predicative
10 A reviewer mentions the possibility that (9 a) and (9 b) are literally true but infelicitous. Space does permit a
discussion of this approach here, but my view is that no independently motivated pragmatic story would explain
the infelicity.
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interpretations of names, however they are generated, are not lexicalized. The obvious thing
for the standard approach to say is that the interpretive route from an inscription of j_ e_ a_ n
to the property called j_ e_ a_ n does not involve the lexicon at all. Rather, the interpretation
is broadly quotational. Interpreting an uttered sign quotationally need not involve linking it
to any lexical item. Consider (14).
(14) We got worried when the car started going “kerflunk-kerflunk”.
Clearly the interpretation of (14) involves no step at which “kerflunk-kerflunk” must be
interpreted as the expression of, or even associated with, any lexical item.
Standard theorists should hold that predicative interpretations of names do not involve
names, qua lexical items, at all. Rather, they involve the quotation of a sign that is the
articulation feature of a range of names, and some pragmatic mechanism for accessing the
being-called interpretation. The details of an approach of this sort go well beyond the scope
of this paper. But the basic point is that it offers an interpretive route from an an inscription
of j_ e_ a_ n to the property called j_ e_ a_ n which does not run through the lexicon. I
will note, as indirect evidence for the line pursued here, that orthodox theorists who have
attempted to give an account of predicative interpretations of names have offered an account
with this structure for reasons completely independent of those offered here (see, e.g., (Leckie,
2012), Jeshion (2014, section 6)). The argument presented here is additional evidence that
those approaches are on the right track.
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A Problem for Predicativism
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