The distinction between index and referent enabled Nunberg to claim that deferred reference is a general phenomenon while direct reference is just a special case in which the index coincides with the referent. In general, the referent can be an object or a property. In the latter case indexicals contribute properties to the propositions expressed and that should account for their descriptive uses. Yet different ways in which a property can contribute to a proposition result in either singular or general propositions being expressed, and consequently, the fact that a property ‘contributes to the proposition’ cannot be a definitive sign of descriptive interpretation. The author has distinguished cases of deferred reference from descriptive uses of indexicals and proposed an analysis of the latter by a pragmatic mechanism of quasi-anaphora. This is an attempt to explain in what way a property retrieved from the context contributes to the general proposition expressed by an indexical utterance. According to the proposed account, the property serves as a context set for the binary quantifier that constrains the structure of the proposition. The mechanism of quasi-anaphoric interpretation can generate either a proposition expressed, or just a proposition implicated. The former is triggered by failures of basic level interpretations. The latter emerges when there is inconsistency between the proposition expressed and the pragmatic purpose of expressing it.
keywords in Polish:
wyrażenia okazjonalne, referencja przeniesiona, deskryptywne wyrażenia okazjonalne, anafora, sąd jednostkowy, sąd ogólny
keywords in English:
indexicals, deferred reference, descriptive indexicals, anaphora, singular proposition, general proposition