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The semantics of singular terms1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

Gordon Matheson
Gordon Matheson*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
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Extract

There is a distinction within the natural language between those singular terms which designate and those which do not. On the basis of this distinction there arise irregularities both in the assignment to expressions of semantical properties and relations and in the presumed attribution of existence to individuals. Although such irregularities are characteristic of the employment of singular terms, they are not reproduced either for or within the usual formalized languages. Accordingly, we construct a formalized language for which the mentioned irregularities are reproduced — hence, a language which in this respect mirrors more faithfully than is customary the structure of the natural language.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Symbolic Logic , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , December 1962 , pp. 439 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 1962

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Footnotes

1

In this paper ‘singular term’ occurs as an abbreviation for the more exact expression, ‘simple concrete singular term.’ It applies to expressions such as ‘Cicero’ and ‘Pegasus.’ On the other hand, it does not apply to compound expressions such as ‘the author of De Senectute,’ ‘the winged horse which was captured by Bellerophon,’ and ‘the number of the planets.’ Nor does it apply to abstract expressions such as ‘9’, ‘piety,’ and ‘the number of the planets.’ For the general notion of singular term see [15], p. 45; [18], pp. 203–206; [20], pp. 95–96. For the distinction, under divergent terminology, between simple and compound singular terms see [8], p. 3. For the distinction between concrete and abstract expressions see [18], pp. 204–205; [20], p. 118ff.

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