ABSTRACT
We very commonly use expressions of certain kinds to mention or refer to some
individual person or single object or particular event or place or process, in the
course of doing what we should normally describe as making a statement about that
person, object, place, event, or process. I shall call this way of using expressions the
‘uniquely referring use’. The classes of expressions which are most commonly used
in this way are: singular demonstrative pronouns (‘this’ and ‘that’); proper names
(e.g. ‘Venice’, ‘Napoleon’, ‘John’); singular personal and impersonal pronouns
(‘he’, ‘she’, ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘it’); and phrases beginning with the definite article followed
by a noun, qualified or unqualified, in the singular (e.g. ‘the table’, ‘the old man’,
‘the king of France’). Any expression of any of these classes can occur as the subject
of what would traditionally be regarded as a singular subject-predicate sentence;
and would, so occurring, exemplify the use I wish to discuss.
