ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author proceeds to a comparison of pronouns and variables. It is often claimed that the function variables have in the predicate calculus is occupied in natural language by pronouns. Logicians assumed that only pronouns are the variables of natural language because pronouns have minimal descriptive content, and are therefore similar in this respect to the calculus' variables, and because they are the part of speech most frequently used in the alleged variable role. A truth-functional operator "bound" by a quantified noun phrase does not have a meaning distinct from that of the corresponding unbound operator. Similarly for noun phrases in the alleged variable role, which the author calls bound anaphors. The rule of use necessary for the understanding of a quantified sentence because of the presence of a bound anaphor in it is the same rule of use needed for an unbound anaphor.
