Archive MIRON-FULEA Mihaela
The Annals of Ovidius University Constanţa no.20 / 2009
MIRON-FULEA MIHAELA - On the Theory of Naming Predicates
(pag. 77-86)
The paper is intended as a critical reflection on the theoretical hypothesis put forward by Kleiber (1981) according to which the meaning of proper names is an abbreviation of the naming predicate to be named /N/(x). The author’s approach falls into a cumulative perspective: the deceleration of the strong and weak points of the naming predicate theory is not intended as a rigid diagnosis of the argumentative force of the system proposed by Kleiber in 1981. On the contrary, it is an efficient manner of building the personal theoretical model, by tackling the problems retained and by identifying the pertinent research directions. The core thesis is that the naming predicate is not the meaning but the proper noun itself as a lexical item: it joins together, within a virtual non-empty open referential class, individual (or discrete) occurrences regarded as particular entities sharing the denominative feature to be named /N/(x), acquired by virtue of a particular name assignment convention. The meaning, as a principle generating the referential class, is not equivalent to the naming paraphrase to be named /N/(x), although the naming feature is part of the semantic content of proper names. The naming feature to be named /N/(x) is presupposed, not asserted, by the proper noun: it corresponds to the initial performative act of naming (I name you PN) and it is imposed as a condition of use for the name (the prior naming condition). The meaning of proper names, defined an a ensemble of its conditions of use, contains three semantic presuppositions: the existential presupposition of the virtual non-empty open referential class of particular entities (accounting for their status of nominal predicates); the uniqueness presupposition of discrete referents (accounting for the particular entity ontological status of individual occurrences) and the prior naming presupposition (accounting for the establishment of the referential class). The first semantic presupposition brings the proper noun close to the categorematic individuating nouns class. The other two presuppositions set the proper noun apart from the common noun whose referents are never defined as particulars: they are not individually submitted to a prior naming act. For common nouns, the designation is achieved by a general naming convention. Contrarily, for proper nouns the designation requires, apart from the presence of a general convention, the prior existence of certain particular naming conventions.