David Lumsden

Does speaker's reference have semantic relevance?

ConclusionMy immediate conclusion, therefore, is a modest one. I only specifically rule out the semantic convention for definite descriptions in which the semantic referent just is the speakers referent. In arguing for that I carefully avoided relying on the helpfulness assumption. But I did, implicitly, make use of the following procedure.In examining a claim that C is the semantic convention (or form of convention) for a term (or class of term), check to see that C is capable of being helpful to the extent that an inspection of cases of successful communication employing that term shows it must be.My broader moral is that such a procedure should be employed in determining what are our semantic conventions.

Noun Phrases and Truth in the Nyāya and Western Pragmatics

In the Nyāya, noun phrases are included within the category of sentence and can be assigned truth values, unlike the standard approach in Western philosophy and linguistics in which they are assigned referents. The approach to noun phrases developed here is to treat them as equivalent to sentences at a base level and assign the process of determining referents to pragmatic principles. We can see how this can occur within the Relevance Theory pragmatic framework of Sperber and Wilson, which approaches pragmatics in terms of principles of cognitive processing. We can also relate the approach to a pragmatic interpretation of Donnellan’s referential-attributive distinction concerning definite descriptions.

The Relationship Between Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference

The distinction between speaker’s and semantic reference arose in connection with Donnellan’s distinction between the referential use and the attributive use of definite descriptions. The central issue concerning the referential/attributive distinction is whether it is semantic or pragmatic. Kripke favours the pragmatic interpretation and developed the terminology of speaker’s and semantic reference in his explanation. The notion of speaker’s reference can apply also to uses of proper names, demonstratives, indefinite descriptions and quantifier expressions. The main danger for the speaker’s reference/semantic reference distinction lies in controversy over the semantics/pragmatics interface. Both Relevance Theory and neo-Gricean theory acknowledge the phenomenon of pragmatic intrusion into semantics. If the pragmatic intrusion involves objective context rather than speaker’s intentions this may permit a distinction between speaker’s and semantic reference.