Proper names and metasemantic challenges

: an idiolectal account

Abstract

This dissertation offers an in depth discussion of a highly debated category of natural language expressions, which has been at the center of a significant attention in the last decades: proper names. The thesis presents a critical overview of the literature on these expressions' semantics and metasemantics, defending a referentialist, Millian, conception of names against some recently presented alternatives and offering a new metasemantic model to explain the complex mechanisms responsible for the determination of names' reference. In the first part of the thesis, I offer a detailed discussion of the two main alternatives to constant referentialist accounts in the contemporary literature, respectively represented by predicativist views (Chapter 1) and non-constant referentialist views (Chapter 2). After a brief assessment of their advantages and merits, I consider how these theories fair in comparison with more classical constant pictures, showing that, all things considered, the latter views still seem preferable. Then, in the second part of the thesis, I proceed to a discussion of the metasemantics of proper names, conceived as constant referential expressions in line with what argued in conclusion to Part 1. In particular, I introduce the semantic/metasemantic distinction and present some methodological considerations in Chapter 3, proceeding to a more detailed discussion of the main metasemantic accounts of names defended in the literature at the begin of Chapter 4, arguing against the social conception of reference-fixing dominant in the literature. Finally, I conclude this thesis discussion in Chapter 4 and 5 by presenting an alternative picture of names' metasemantics, focused on speakers abilities and idiolects. In particular, I present an account capable of capturing the conventional dimension of names and their relation to social practices, while avoiding the difficulties highlighted in Chapter 4.

Date of Award	30 Jun 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews University of Bonn
Supervisor	Simon James Prosser (Supervisor), Elke Brendel (Supervisor) & Patrick Michael Greenough (Supervisor)