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The cross-linguistic uses of proper names
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy, Theoreretical Philosophy.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0007-6406
2025 (English)In: Theoria, ISSN 0040-5825, E-ISSN 1755-2567, Vol. 91, no 1, p. 106-121Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

A distinctive and widely recognized feature of proper names is that, unlike other words, names can be used across languages without modification. Yet, this feature of names-the prevalence and acceptability of their 'cross-linguistic' uses-has been mostly overlooked within philosophy. This article highlights the theoretical importance of the cross-linguistic uses of names in the debate concerning their syntax and semantics. It identifies an anomalous phonological feature of names in their cross-linguistic uses and argues that the source of the anomaly is the widespread view that proper names are syntactically simple. It also argues that such uses provide evidence for the syntactic view that the phonological articulation of a name is mentioned and not used in the syntax-a view that is consistent with some but not all semantic views of names. By examining the hitherto overlooked cross-linguistic uses of names, this article provides new evidence in favour of a certain variety of metalinguistic views concerning the syntax and semantics of names.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
John Wiley & Sons, 2025. Vol. 91, no 1, p. 106-121
Keywords [en]
metalinguistic views, phonetics, proper names, quotation, semantics, syntax
National Category
Studies of Specific Languages Comparative Language Studies and Linguistics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-554791DOI: 10.1111/theo.12578ISI: 001362759600001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85210144902OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-554791DiVA, id: diva2:1952771
Available from: 2025-04-16 Created: 2025-04-16 Last updated: 2025-04-16Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
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  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
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  • asciidoc
  • rtf