More on Pronouns: Reply to Claude Boisson

Claude Boisson writes, and I respond in blue:

From a strictly linguistic point of view, this:

1) In the flow of discourse “pronouns” may indeed have anaphoric use, and sometimes cataphoric use (the “antecedent” being then what we should call a postcedent).

Thus they are rightly called *pro*-nouns, or rather *pro*-noun phrases, given that they usually point to a NP in the left context, sometimes in the right context (After he had conquered Gaul, Julius Caesar marched on Rome).

 

This use is internal to speech. 

I have made these points myself though in different terms.  If we think of antecedency referentially as opposed to temporally/spatially, then the antecedent of 'he' in your example is 'Julius Caesar' despite the pronoun's appearing before/to the left  of 'Julius Caesar.'  Perhaps we could define the antecedent of a pronoun that has one, whenever/wherever it appears in a stretch of discourse, as the word or phrase that bears the burden of objective reference that the pronoun merely borrows. 

 

For example, 'When he arrived at the bar, Tom Lush ordered a double Manhattan.' The antecedent (as I use the term) of the pronoun 'he' is the proper name 'Tom Lush.' While both the name and the pronoun refer objectively, i.e., extra-linguistically, the pronoun also 'refers back' or rather in this case 'refers forward' -- horizontally if you will -- to the name. But both words refer 'vertically' to the extra-linguistic domain (the 'world' in one sense of this polyvalent word); it is just that the objective reference of the pronoun is parasitic upon the objective reference of the name. By itself, the pronoun achieves no objective reference. It is the antecedent that gives the pronoun a reference and a particular, singular, extra-linguistic referent  That is how I see it. 

 

My long-time sparring partner, Edward Buckner, sees things differently. For him all reference is intra-linguistic. That makes him a linguistic idealist by my lights. See this post of mine in which I discuss a bit of Buckner's theory. 

 

I agree that the reference of the pronoun in your example, Claude, is intra-linguistic or "internal to speech" and writing too. But only in part. It also exhibits extra-linguistic reference. I would say that the extra-linguistic reference of a pronoun in cases like the one you cite is parasitic upon the reference of its antecedent: it borrows the extra-linguistic reference of the antecedent, whereas the reference of the antecedent -- 'Julius Caesar' in your example -- is unborrowed.

 

Is there purely intra-linguistic reference? I should think so. Consider the following sentence from a piece of pure fiction:  'Tom's wife left him.'  The antecedent of  the pronoun 'him' is Tom.'  This back reference is purely intra-linguistic.  It is plausible to maintain  that the only reference exhibited by 'him' is back reference, and that 'him' does not pick up the extra-linguistic reference of 'Tom,' there being no such reference to pick up.  Then we would have case of purely intra-linguistic reference.

 

There is also the point I made in my earlier post, namely, that in 'He who hesitates is lost,' 'he' has no antecedent/postcedent and is therefore not functioning as a pronoun, assuming that a pronoun is 'pro' a noun or name. I dubbed this use 'quantificational.' The pronoun 'he' can be removed. paraphrased away, without any loss of meaning. Thus: for any x, if hesitates, then x is lost. The variable 'x' bound by the universal quantifier does not refer to anything or anyone.  (Or should we say, with W. V. Quine, that the bound variable refers with "studied ambiguity"?)

 

Elizabeth Anscombe in her important paper, "The First Person," (in Mind and Language, ed. Guttenplan, Oxford UP, 1975, p. 53) makes a closely related point when she tells us that "a singular pronoun may even be a variable (as in 'If anyone says that, he is a fool') -- and hence not any kind of singular designation of an object."  Surely she is right. This is especially clear from the fact that there might be no person who says the foolish thing. A pronoun that functions as a quantifier in a given context is not functioning pronominally.

 

2) But so-called “pronouns” also have a quite different use, a deictic use. They then point to entities in the environment, and outside discourse, speech.

 

When you say “I”, you don’t need to take the trouble of referring to yourself as “William F. Vallicella” or “the person who is now talking”. This is a pro-Vallicella. When I say “I”, “I” is a pro-Boisson. It is a pro-X, with X ranging over human beings, gods, and even animals, plants or things in fairy tales, fables, “myths”…

 

I basically agree. I would put the point by saying that, in addition to strictly pronominal and quantificational uses, grammatical pronouns also have indexical uses. Suppose I point to Peter and say

He smokes cigarettes.

This is an indexical use of 'he.'  Part of what makes it an indexical use is that its reference depends on the context of utterance: I utter a token of 'he' while pointing at Peter, or nodding in his direction.  Another part of what makes it an indexical is that it refers directly, not just in the sense that the reference is not routed through a description or sense associated with the use of the pronoun, but also in that there is no need for an antecedent to secure the reference.  Now suppose I say

I smoke cigars.

This use of 'I' is clearly indexical, although it is a purely indexical (D. Kaplan) inasmuch as there is no need for a demonstration:  I don't need to point to myself when I say 'I smoke cigars.'  And like the immediately preceding example, there is no need for an antecedent to nail down the reference of 'I.'  Not every pronoun needs an antecedent to do a referential job.

In fact, it seems that no indexical expression, used indexically, has or could have an antecedent.  Hector-Neri Castaneda puts it like this:

Whether in oratio recta or in oratio obliqua, (genuine) indicators have no antecedents. ("Indicators and Quasi-Indicators" reprinted in The Phenomeno-Logic of the I, p. 67)

 

3) As far as I am aware, and notably, the same entities economically serve both ends in (all?) languages. But I may very well be mistaken. It would be interesting if there were a language with two sets of words, one for personal ana/cata-phora, and one for personal deixis. Surely some linguists must have asked that question before. What can a philosopher make of this?

 

It is not clear to me what you are now suggesting, Claude.  The semantics of the first-person singular pronoun, used indexically, is extremely tricky.  This entry is already too long, and so I will end with a question. Suppose that WFV assertively utters a token of 'I smoke cigars.'  One might naturally think that the I-sentence can be replaced, not only salva veritate, but also salva significatione, with 'WFV smokes cigars.'  Now it is clear that both sentences have the same truth-conditions. But do they have the same sense?  To take a simpler example, the following two sentences have the same truth-conditions:

I am WFV (asserted by WFV)

and

WFV is (identical to) WFV.

But do they have the same sense?  Hint: if anyone other than WFV makes the first assertion, he lies.  But everyone who makes the second assertion tells the truth.

Comments

[oz]

>WFV assertively utters a token of 'I smoke cigars.'

WFV said "I smoke cigars" = WFV said that he smoked cigars.

[oz]

>I don't need to point to myself when I say 'I smoke cigars.'

You don't, if the unique sound of your voice is enough to identify you, or if I can see you speaking (i.e. see your mouth moving or identify the direction of your voice with your visual direction).

Otherwise it is like those frustrating conference calls where the bandwidth is so limited that most voices sound the same. Thus someone says that they smoke cigars.