ABSTRACT
Until the end of the nineteenth century, the assimilation resulted more in the distortion of the semantics of predicates than in that of referring concepts. Both referring concepts and predicates were often considered names or denotative expressions. Frege's reasons and arguments for not taking common nouns in the grammatical subject position to be referring expressions are therefore far from sufficient. It seems that Gottiob Frege first formed, under the influence of mathematics, the artificial language of his Begriffsschrift, which mistakes such reference for predication. Russell's work had a more significant role in the almost universal acceptance of the calculus, and with it of this mistaken analysis. And Bertrand Russell seems to have been convinced that such common nouns are logical predicates primarily by F. H. Bradley. Thus, Russell's acceptance of Frege's predicate calculus' analysis of such common nouns as predicates was apparently made possible also by Bradley's arguments for their predicative nature.
