Use Of Proper Names Research Articles

Folk concepts of person and identity: A response to Nichols and Bruno

Nichols and Bruno (2010) claim that the folk judge that psychological continuity is necessary for personal identity. In this article, we evaluate this claim. First, we argue that it is likely that in thinking about hypothetical cases of transformations, the folk do not use a unitary concept of personal identity, but instead rely on different concepts of ‘person’, ‘identity’, and ‘individual’. Identity can be ascribed even when post-transformation individuals are no longer categorized as persons. Second, we provide new empirical evidence suggesting that the folk do not consider psychological continuity to be necessary for an individual to be categorized as a person or for ascribing identity over time and through transformations. In this, we assume, along with Nichols and Bruno, that folk judgments about identity can be read off the use of proper names. Furthermore, we raise some doubts about the ability of current experimental designs to adequately distinguish between qualitative and numerical identity judgments. We conclude that these claims give us a good reason to be skeptical about the prospects of using folk intuitions in philosophical theorizing about personal identity.

Kétnyelvűség és névszemiotikai tájkép

The paper examines the connections between bilingualism and the name-semiotic landscape, focusing especially on the name-semiotic landscape of Slovakian settlements populated by Hungarian minorities as well as on name laws affecting the visual use of proper names in Slovakia. The name-semiotic landscape consists of proper names (especially personal names, place names and the names of institutions) that appear on name signs, notices in public places and other surfaces (e.g. on posters, wall surfaces, gravestones, tableaux). The author explores the extent to which Slovakian settlements with Hungarian minorities respect minority language rights in the visual use of proper names; whether or not native name use is spreading; and also examines the presence of signs and notices including Hungarian proper names. The paper describes the semiotic landscape characteristic of Slovakian settlements populated by Hungarian minorities with respect to each name type: personal names, place names and the names of institutions.

The Predicate View of Proper Names

AbstractThe Millian view that the meaning of a proper name is simply its referent has long been popular among philosophers of language. It might even be deemed the orthodox view, despite its well‐known difficulties. Fregean and Russellian alternatives, though widely discussed, are much less popular. The Predicate View has not even been taken seriously, at least until fairly recently, but finally, it is receiving the attention it deserves. It says that a name expresses the property of bearing that name. Despite its apparent shortcomings, it has a distinct virtue: It straightforwardly reckons with the fact that proper names generally have multiple bearers and are sometimes used to ascribe the property of bearing a name rather than to refer to a particular bearer of the name. It holds that proper names are much the same as common nouns, both semantically and syntactically, with only superficial differences. They both can be quantified and modified. The main difference, at least in English (and some other languages), is that when used to refer a proper name, unlike a common noun, is not preceded by the definite article. The Predicate View accounts for manifestly predicative uses, but to be vindicated, it needs to do justice to the fact that the main use of proper names is to refer.

Proper name anomia after right-hemispheric lesion: a case study

This study describes the case of CH, a 68-year-old left-handed woman who suffered a right temporo-parieto-occipital infarct in the territory of the middle cerebral artery and who exhibits severe proper name anomia. During the acute stage, CH was diagnosed with severe amnestic aphasia (Aachen Aphasia Test). Her lesion mirrors those of left hemisphere impairing the processing proper names, without an aphasic language disorder in general. Seven weeks later, language improved to a mild amnestic aphasia that currently does not interfere with her daily life. However, the use of proper names in both the visual and auditory modalities was still impaired and showed no improvement after 6 months of speech therapy. While not being able to name family members or familiar persons, she was, however, still able to describe the persons’ backgrounds along with some additional semantic information. Furthermore, in a simple semantic design test, CH was selectively impaired in correctly classifying proper names into their respective word classes. Conversely, she was able to correctly name and classify other word categories (e.g., common nouns). In the subsequent study, we assessed the modalities “auditory comprehension,” “picture naming,” and “reading comprehension” and classified her responses in the categories “correctly named,” “correctly classified,” “correctly described attributes” (e.g., occupation) and “falsely named.” The results were compared with those of an age-matched healthy control group. In the visual task, CH correctly named 80% of the visualized objects, 3% of the familiar persons and 15% of the familiar city views.

Play on the Proper Names of Individuals in the Catullan Corpus: Wordplay, the Iambic Tradition, and the Late Republican Culture of Public Abuse

AbstractThe paper explores the significance of names and naming in Catullus. Catullus’ use of proper names, and in particular his play on the connotations of the names of individuals who are attacked within his poems, has not been fully explored to date, and the paper identifies several examples of such play which have not previously been recognized. The paper examines Catullan wordplay in the context of both the iambic tradition and the public abuse culture of the late Roman Republic.

Sumbangan Bahasa Arab terhadap Bahasa Indonesia dalam Perspektif Pengembangan Bahasa dan Budaya

This study discusses the Arabic contributions to the Bahasa Indonesia in the perspective of language and culture developments. The data are taken from Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI). Based on the analysis done shows that there are three important aspects of the Arabic contribution to the Bahasa Indonesia, namely vocabulary enrichment, grammar system, and cultural development. In the aspect of vocabulary enrichment, approximately 2.336 Arabic vocabularies have moved into Bahasa Indonesia. In the aspect of grammar, the Arabic grammatical system is used in the grammatical system of Bahasa Indonesian such as gender formation and formation of word that shows the meaning of nature. In the cultural aspect, the Arabic language also contribute to the development of Indonesian culture, such as the use of proper names in Arabic by the Indonesian Muslims, religious institutions, and state. Moreover, the Arabic terms are also used in everyday expressions, literature, and in the constitutional system of the Republic of Indonesia.

Akvizice češtiny a propriální sféra jazyka

The author analyzes two textbooks prepared for teaching Czech as a foreign language (A1 level) for the use of proper names for glottodidactic purposes. He indicates their function of information and communicative, as well as grammatical and socio-cultural. The lexical material is divided into class depending on the type of the referent, he compares them and highlights the position of proper names in the text. He describes the different types of anthroponyms, toponyms and chrematonyms and performed by them functions, as well as their attendance in particular group of proper names. Author shows the dependence of occurrence of proper names’ type adopted in textbook of the theory of language acquisition. In this way, he points out what information is displayed through different types of proper names.

Will the Revolution Be Tweeted? Mapping Complex Data Patterns from Sites of Protest

Can Twitter really bring a dictator to his knees? Does Youtube stream information that is more influential than traditional news providers, such as New York Times? In the mainstream media debate between Clay Shirky and Malcolm Gladwell about whether or not “the revolution will be tweeted” both pundits make confidently totalizing arguments. In contrast, this panel looks at the radical rhetorics of activism alongside digital practices of the everyday by mapping specific data patterns and discursive conventions across time and space in networked media technologies. Speaking from theoretical perspectives of the international Feminist Technology Network, these papers use textual explication, concept mapping, and media visualization to expose the rich polyvocalism of heterogeneous Internet discourses, full of affect and agency, even if the imagined community to which these utterances appeal is not necessarily realized in embodied interactions of protest at the town hall, city square, or national capital. The flux of configurations of collective and personal expression that constitutes online political speech in North Africa, the Middle East, and India is also often difficult to reduce to linear and predictive trends, and even earlier models of “smart mobs” (Rheingold) and “tactical media” (Lovink) do not always neatly map on to user behaviors in situations of political crisis. It may be difficult to make direct correlations between the rise of revolutionary movements made manifest through large-scale street actions and the adoption of new distributed communication practices around information technologies, but researchers can examine how speech acts of protest can be conceptualized, facilitated, staged, ignored, negated, or thwarted in a culture of accelerated mediation and acknowledge the potential fragmentation of publics, the seeming disappearance of the civic, and, possibly, the dissolution of the nation state in the shift of globalization. The three speakers examine how digital status update services, such as Twitter, not only disseminate links, images, and video that spur political protest but also allow for new forms of political discourse around key terms that function as metadata. Speaker one describes the use of proper names in Twitter hashtags that reference key actors, concepts, and slogans in recent protests against sexual violence in India. Although American NGOs involved in the global women’s empowerment movement may want to see legal, medical, and social privacy practices that mirror those in political institutions in the West, the problem of rape may actually be more forcefully addressed if the victim is given a proper name that can function as a keyword for shared online discourse. Even if it is only a pseudonym, such as Damini or Amanat, as in the recent Delhi gang rape case, naming the victim serves a key informational purpose. Speaker two examines how recent theories of copresence and of networked publics help understand the integration of “human narratives” and “data narratives” that unfold turning times of accelerated political change. This speaker examines how it was not merely the dissemination of graphic images of a self-immolated protester that spurred the overthrow an oppressive Tunisian regime, but the way that the violence against the body of Mohamed Bouazizi was understood through a hashtag with his name. Using the framework of object studies, this speaker will examine how the “body at risk” can be mapped across networked publics.

The problem of peers in Vietnamese interaction

In Vietnamese, address (second‐person reference) is typically accomplished by the use of a kin term regardless of whether the talk's recipient is a genealogical relative or not. All Vietnamese kin terms encode a specification of either relative age or relative generation of participants, and there are no reciprocal terms akin to English ‘brother’ or ‘sister’; rather, a speaker must select between terms such as ‘older brother’ (anh) or ‘younger sibling’ (em). Since generation is normatively associated with a difference in age, the result is a ubiquitous indexing of age and status hierarchies in all acts of address. This results in a problem for peers. How, in such a system, should they address one another (and also self‐refer)? In this article, we describe the various practices that speakers use to subvert the system and thus avoid indexing differences of age or station. Specifically, we describe four practices: (1) the use of true pronouns in address and self‐reference; (2) the use of proper names in address and self‐reference; (3) the use of kin terms in address and pronouns in self‐reference; and (4) the ironic use of kin terms in address. We conclude that the Vietnamese system well illustrates what is likely a universal tension between hierarchy and equality in acts of address and self‐reference, by showing how speakers deconstruct the vector of age and indicate that they consider one another peers. We further suggest that although the literature in this area has focused on the ways in which languages convey differences of status and rank, social order is built as much upon relations of parity and sameness – on identification of the other as neither higher nor lower than me – as it is upon relations of hierarchy.

Correction of Confusions Regarding the Identity and Synonymy of <I>Youngia</I> (Asteraceae: Tribe Cichorieae) in Taiwan

Abstract Youngia japonica, the type species for its genus, has the widest distribution in the genus and is invasive worldwide. Recent molecular phylogenetic analysis supported recognition of three ecologically differentiated entities: Y. japonica subsp. formosana, Y. japonica subsp. japonica, and an undescribed morphological variant thought to be a new subspecies in Taiwan. These are the only infraspecific taxa currently recognized in this morphologically variable species. Use of proper names for these taxa and related species is important for future revision of Y. japonica in other regions, for nomenclature and biogeography of the genus, and for activities to control its invasiveness. Careful examination of the holotype of Y. japonica subsp. formosana and relevant literature revealed that the name has long been misapplied to Youngia in mountain ranges in Taiwan; it should be applied to the morphological variant growing on littoral, raised coral reefs in southwestern Taiwan. The misidentified entity is he...

Modification and constructional blends in the use of proper names

This paper discusses a range of attested examples of NPs in which proper names are preceded by articles, determiners, and adjectives, arguing that such instances do not constitute a change into a common noun category. On the basis of such examples, it is claimed that the meaning of proper names relies not on unique reference, but on frame metonymy. Frames evoked by proper names interact with NP constructions, yielding a range of uses driven by the discourse context. Further, it is shown how the use of modified proper names in copular constructions is best explained through the framework of blending and the concept of constructional compositionality (as defined in Dancygier and Sweetser 2005).

Les noms propres à travers 2 continents, 3 langues et 4 Pays Traduction des noms propres du roman Die Kuh auf dem Bast du docteur Lenard, auto-traduit en anglais puis en hongrois

This paper proposes to analyse short excerpts of parallel texts and examine how a translation project, openly proclaimed to be target-oriented, implements adaptational strategies, even in its use of proper names, for each type of public targeted by the author-translator. The author, Alexander Lenard (1910-1972), is a doctor, poet, writer, Latinist, musician, polyglot, essayist and translator. His novel in German Kuh auf dem Bast (translated in English as The Valley of the Latin Bear), is an expression of his desire to build a bridge between two worlds in an intercultural context. It describes the life of a small Brazilian community as seen through the eyes of a refugee torn between his nostalgia of the European life he lost and the happiness of a rediscovered peace.

Reference and Response

A standard view of reference holds that a speaker's use of a name refers to a certain thing in virtue of the speaker's associating a condition with that use that singles the referent out. This view has been criticized by Saul Kripke as empirically inadequate. Recently, however, it has been argued that a version of the standard view, a response-based theory of reference, survives the charge of empirical inadequacy by allowing that associated conditions may be largely or even entirely implicit. This paper argues that response-based theories of reference are prey to a variant of the empirical inadequacy objection, because they are ill-suited to accommodate the successful use of proper names by pre-school children. Further, I argue that there is reason to believe that normal adults are, by and large, no different from children with respect to how the referents of their names are determined. I conclude that speakers typically refer positionally: the referent of a use of a proper name is typically determined by aspects of the speaker's position, rather than by associated conditions present, however implicitly, in her psychology.

Perspectival Direct Reference for Proper Names

I defend what I believe to be a new variation on Kripkean themes, for the purpose of providing an improved way to understand the referring functions of proper names. I begin by discussing roles played by perceptual perspectives in the use of proper names, and then broaden the discussion to include what I call “cognitive perspectives.” Although both types of perspectives underwrite the existence of intentional intermediaries between proper names and their referents, the existence of these intentional intermediaries does not entail that a Kripke-inspired view of direct reference must be abandoned. At the same time, the existence of these intermediaries can be seen to play illuminating roles as regards the referring functions of proper names in the following types of cases, among others: (a) where different names pick out the same subject; (b) where names are empty. Along the way, I argue that “perspectival views” are not something “inside the head” of language users as intended by Putnam in his well-known discussion of meaning.

Zur Grammatik indefiniter Eigennamen

Abstract The paper presents a new analysis of a certain type of use of proper names that appears particularly widespread in German (as well as in French or Spanish, but only marginally in English). While proper names are generally regarded as being inherently definite, in German one frequently finds proper names preceded by the indefinite article. Indefinite proper names differ in their semantic and syntactic properties from ordinary proper names (= PN). I distinguish two main types: (i) the appellative type introduces sets of objects that stand in a relation to the bearer of the PN and are described by predicates of the type called ‘PN’, is related to PN or has typical properties of PN; (ii) the subindividual type introduces entities that are not individuals by themselves, but depend on the bearer of the PN. I distinguish two subtypes: stages and manifestations. The relation between stages or manifestations and the bearer of the proper name is reconstructed by Carlson's (Reference to Kinds in English, Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1977) instantiation relation. Both main types differ in their semantics as well as in their syntax and therefore raise interesting questions for the pragmatics-semantics-syntax interface.

On an argument of Segal’s against singular object-dependent thoughts

Abstract This paper discusses and criticizes Segal’s 1989 argument against singular object-dependent thoughts. His argument aims at showing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant. My criticism of Segal’s argument has two parts. First, I appeal to common anti-individualist arguments to the effect that Segal’s type of argument only succeeds in establishing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant for those aspects of subjects’ behaviour that do not require reference to external objects. Secondly, Segal’s view on singular thoughts is at odds with his view on the semantics of proper names, which favours the singularity and object-dependency of the truth-conditions of sentences in which they occur. In particular, his views are at odds with a position he holds, that truth-conditional semantics can adequately account for all aspects of speakers’ linguistic competence in the use of proper names.

»Aber wir waren zu spät für den Himmel.«

This work examines the parallels and the differences between the novel Tristan da Cunha by Raoul Schrott (2003) and the myth of Tristan and Isolde. Besides the use of proper names it is primarily the relationship between the protagonists that show explicit references to the Old French legend. These parallels — but also the modifications that Schrott makes — show that the myth of Tristan is still a current topic today and an interesting motive for the contemporary novel.

On intuitions about proper names

Machery et al (2004) carried out an experiment which tests the intuition of US and Chinese students about the use of proper names. They arrived at the conclusion that the way most respondents used proper names is not compatible with the causal-historical theory of proper names as advocated by Kripke. The author argues that Machery et al. are wrong in their conclusions. The problem is not just that the interpretation of the findings of their experiments does not take into account some variables that should have been considered, but rather that the experiment is faulty in several respects: their empirical hypothesis is arguably inconsistent, and the setup of the experiment is flawed.

Nominal and pronominal reference in maternal speech during the later stages of language acquisition: a longitudinal study

Ten English-speaking mother-child pairs were videotaped at 21, 24, 30 and 36 months of age in 25-minute free-play interactions to investigate mothers' use of proper names and their use of personal pronouns during the child's second and third years. The results revealed that mothers' unconventional nominal reference to speaker and addressee decreased, as their consistent pronominal reference increased with the age of their children. In addition, the results indicated that mothers used third person pronouns more frequently in reference to toys than in reference to humans, when their children were 21 months of age. However, mothers' use of third person pronouns in reference to toys decreased with the age of their children, whereas their use of third person pronouns in reference to humans increased. These findings are discussed with regard to how such maternal input may help the child to learn correct nominal and pronominal references in English.

The Uncommon Use of Proper Names

The Uncommon Use of Proper Names