Paul Elbourne defends the Fregean view that definite descriptions ('the table', 'the King of France') refer to individuals, and offers a new and radical account of the semantics of pronouns. He draws on a wide range of work, from Frege, Peano, and Russell to the latest findings in linguistics, philosophy of language, and psycholinguistics.

• Preface


• 1: Introduction


• 2: Situation Semantics


• 3: The Definite Article


• 4: Presupposition


• 5: Referential and Attributive


• 6: Anaphora


• 7: Modality Existence Entailments


• 8: Existence Entailments


• 9: Incompleteness


• 10: Pronouns


• 11: Conclusion


• Bibliography


• Index

Paul Elbourne is Reader in Semantics at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Situations and Individuals (MIT Press 2005), Meaning: A Slim Guide to Semantics (OUP 2011), and numerous articles in linguistics and philosophy journals.