On the linguistic complexity of proper names

Voprosy onomastiki, 2018

The paper presents an overview of the generativist approaches to the syntactic analysis of proper names which are only very little known in the field of onomastics. The authors start with the general outline of basic theoretical ideas of generative grammar pertaining to the syntactic nature of words and phrases, the nature of the determiner phrase, and the main issues of transformational semantic syntax. The authors further proceed to present the cornerstone theories related to proper names within the generativist paradigm: Giuseppe Longobardi’s idea of proper names as determiner phrase projections, followed by Hagit Borer who elaborated a detailed analysis of nominal functional sequences; Ora Matushansky’s analysis of constructions of naming and nominating, and its critique by Alexandra Cornilescu. The overview leads the authors to conclude that, although generativism does not offer a unified syntactic theory of proper names, in some respects it can be a more promising theoretical framework than constructivism which now constitutes the basis for the modern “pragmatic” theory of properhood. Unlike constructivism, generativism considers proper names as a part of universal grammar seeking for explanations that would have crosslinguistic relevance. However, the approaches discussed in this paper clearly demonstrate the contribution of the syntactic environment to the interpretation of a noun as a proper or common name, which is a strong argument in favour of the “pragmatic” theory of properhood. The authors show that the generativist framework may also be used in the future for creating a more comprehensive description of some specifically proprial syntactic constructions.

Dialectica, 2000

This paper embeds a theory of proper names in a general approach to singular reference based on type-free property theory. It is proposed that a proper name “N” is a sortal common noun whose meaning is essentially tied to the linguistic type “N”. Moreover, “N” can be singularly referring insofar as it is elliptical for a definite description of the form the “N” Following Montague, the meaning of a definite description is taken to be a property of properties. The proposed theory fulfils the major desiderata stemming from Kripke's works on proper names.

STUF - Language Typology and Universals, 2019

Previous findings on name specific grammar In recent years, linguists have become increasingly interested in the grammatical behavior of proper names as compared to common nounsfrom a theoretical perspective and in case studies, cross-linguistically and on individual languages (cf. e.g.

1999

Although the view that sees proper names as referential singular terms is widely considered orthodoxy, there is a growing popularity to the view that proper names are predicates. This is partly because the orthodoxy faces two anomalies that Predicativism can solve: on the one hand, proper names can have multiple bearers. But multiple bearerhood is (prima facie) a problem to the idea that proper names have just one individual as referent. On the other hand, as Burge (1973) noted, proper names can have predicative uses. But the view that proper names are singular terms arguably does not have the resources to deal with Burge's cases. In this paper I argue that the predicate view of proper names is mistaken. I first argue against the syntactic evidence used to support the view and against the predicativist's methodology of inferring a semantic account for proper names based on incomplete syntactic data. I also show that Predicativism can neither explain the behaviour of proper names in full generality, nor claim the fundamentality of predicative names. In developing my own view, however, I accept the insight that proper names in some sense express generality. Hence I propose that proper names - albeit fundamentally singular referential terms - express generality in two senses. First, by being used as predicates, since then they are true of many individuals; and second, by being referentially related to many individuals. I respond to the problem of multiple bearerhood by proposing that proper names are polyreferential, and also explain the behaviour of proper names in light of the wider phenomenon I called category change, and shown how Polyreferentialism can account for all uses of proper names.

In this essay, I address the following question posed by Glezakos (after Kaplan): What determines the form of a name-containing identity statement? I argue that uses of names are determined by the specific names uttered and the presence (or absence) of coco-referential intentions of the speaker. This explains why utterances of the form a=a are uninformative or knowable a priori, more generally than utterances of the form a=b. My approach has the additional benefit of providing an account of empty names.

Proceedings of the 39th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 2024

Two phenomena have yet to be considered in the syntactic literature on names. First, names inflect differently than nouns that have the same root, such as "Childs" versus "children" (Kim et al. 1994, Marcus et al. 1995, Pinker 1999, Berent et al. 2002). Second, any individual can bear any name, regardless of the "content" that the name may express or its morphological form (Lyons 1977, Borer 2005, Coates 2006, Idrissi et al. 2008). Inspired by the semantic theory of predicativism, this paper argues that names, like nouns, are property-denoting expressions (Sloat 1969, Burge 1973, Geurts 1997, Thomsen 1997, Elbourne 2005, Matushansky 2008, Ghomeshi & Massam 2009, Fara 2015, Matushansky 2015). Name predicates are proposed to minimally consist of two nominalizers, one that generates the name itself and another that converts it into a predicate. The source of regularization is the second cyclic layer, which disrupts locality between the root and higher functional projections (Arad 2003, Embick & Marantz 2008, Embick 2010). Further evidence for two nominalizers is found in languages with grammatical gender, where names that are feminine or masculine in form can be borne by any individual. The lower nominalizer hosts the grammatical gender of the name, and the higher nominalizer is valued with the natural gender of its bearer.

Cadernos de Estudos Linguísticos , 2022

While the predicate view of proper names is popular among linguists, it is not unanimous. This paper contributes to the discussion by considering some linguistic data exemplified by phrases such as “Operation Valkyrie” and “Operation Desert Storm”. These examples bring some clues about the structure of the phrasesthat help us understand the procedure involved in naming individuals. One is the gap between the first constituent (“operation”) and the second constituent (“Valkyrie”),which is filled by an abstract functional structure, as will be argued in this paper. These clues also lead us into two consequences: a) the difference between a definite description and a proper name is not so clear; b) the naming procedure is enabled by a complex syntactic-semantic mechanism within this gap.Our analysis shows that the predicate view provides accurate results for the data under analysis.

2012

This research proposes a unified approach to the semantics of the so-called bare nominals, which include proper names (e.g., Mary), mass and plural terms (e.g., water, cats), and articleless noun phrases in Japanese. I argue that bare nominals themselves are monadic predicates applicable to more than one particular, but they can constitute complex referential phrases when located within an appropriate linguistic environment. Bare nominals used as the subjects or objects of sentences are some or other variant of definite descriptions, which are analyzed as non-quantificational, referential expressions. The overarching thesis is that the semantic properties of bare nominal expressions such as rigidity are not inherent in the words themselves, but derived from the basic features of complex nominal phrases.