Indexicals and Names in Proverbs

Indexicals, Fictions, and Ficta

We defend the view that an indexical uttered by an actor works on the model of deferred reference. If it defers to a character which does not exist, it is an empty term, just as ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Ophelia’ are. The utterance in which it appears does not express a proposition and thus lacks a truth value. We advocate an ontologically parsimonious, anti-realist, position. We show how the notion of tru...

Using Indexicals

In this essay I examine how we use indexicals. The key function of indexicals, I claim, is to help the audience find supplementary, utterance-independent, channels of information about the object to which or to whom the speaker refers. This exploration of the use of indexicals is based on the reflexive-referential theory of the meaning and content of indexicals and other referring expressions (...

Essential Indexicals and Quasi‐Indicators

In this paper I shall focus on Castañeda’s notion of quasi-indicators and I shall defend the following theses: • Essential indexicals (‘I’, ‘here’ and ‘now’) are intrinsically perspectival mechanisms of reference and, as such, they are not reducible to any other mechanism of reference. • Quasi-indicators (e.g. expressions like ‘she (herself )’ exist in natural language and cannot be explained a...

Bipartite indexicals in Yucatec

Presuppositional Indexicals

Kaplanian, two-dimensional theories secure rigidity for indexicals by positing special contexts and semantic mechanisms reserved only for indexicals. The result is a deep and unexplained chasm between expressions that depend on the extra-linguistic context and expressions that depend on the discourse context. Theories that treat indexicals as anaphoric, presuppositional expressions (e.g. Hunter...