Lingua

87 (1992) 169-202.

169

North-Holland

How much am 1 I and how much is she I?

1. Introduction
The problem I want to discuss here is that of the appropriate
description of
personal pronouns,
most notably of singular personal pronouns,
i.e. I, JVU,
he/she. l Within the French tradition, there are two main accounts of personal
pronouns:
one treats them primarily as referential expressions,
the other as
adjuncts to the conjugation
system. The first account I will call referentid;
the second I will call linguisric.
The aim of this paper is to show first that the
linguistic account is not as different from the referential account as has been
believed and second that both accounts are unsatisfactory.

2. The referential account of personal pronouns

The referential account of personal pronouns
makes a strong distinction
between first and second person pronouns and the third person pronouns (he/
s/le), the first two being seen as deictic, while the last is seen as anaphoric. The
anaphoric/deictic
distinction
amounts
to this: deictic pronouns
determine
their referents directly in the situation of discourse (or situation of communication) while anaphoric pronouns determine their referents indirectly through
an antecedent,
that is, through a linguistic expression
which has occurred
previously. Thus, while I and JVU have as referents respectively the speaker
and the addressee/hearer
and while it is part of their linguistic meaning that
they have these referents and not others (I shall come back to this later), he/
she has a referent which is not determined
by its linguistic meaning but by its
relationship
with another linguistic expression which binds it to its referent.
1 For reasons
pronoun here.

which

0024-384li92;%05.00

will be obvious

(: 1992 -

in the text, I will not discuss

Elsevier Science Publishers.

the neutral

All rights reserved

third

person

This account is very sketchy and I will extend it along the lines of a recent
theory of reference developed by the French linguist Jean-Claude
Milner (cf.
Milner 1982). According to Milner, the notion of reference is fundamental
in
linguistics because the main function of language is designation,
even though
this function is not equally divided between linguistic categories. The main
referential
expressions
are names and pronouns
or, more generally,
noun
phrases. The noun phrases are thus the chief objects of a theory of reference. A
noun phrase has a referent. i.e. it designates a part of reality. though not just
any part of reality will do. It is the linguistic meaning of each linguistic
expression which determines, to some extent at least. what part of reality that
expression designates, according to the different meanings of the bards ol
which it is composed. This linguistic meaning can be described as the set of
conditions which a part of reality must satisfy in order to be the referent of the
word or expression. Milner proposes the following terminology:
the part 01
reality which an expression designates is its UCTIILI/
rc~f~~r~c (&J~;wIzw c~c,~~l/c~);
the linguistic meaning of that expression. composed of the linguistic meanings
of its elements, is its virtuui rc~fiwnw
(r~fi;rcwc~
~~irtudlc).
In this respect.
Milners theory is r~otttpositionctl. It should be noted that. while a word has an
actual reference only when it occurs in an utterance. its virtual reference is
independent
of its use in any particular utterance.
Yet not all noun phrases have a virtual reference: no condition has to be met
by any part of reality (except for gender) for it to be the referent of /x/.c/w.
Now. if the actual reference of a noun phrase is determined
by its virtual
reference, a noun phrase without a virtual reference should not be able to have
an actual reference. This is where the notion of utuphoru,
and more precisely
ptwmm
utuqdzora. comes into focus. Pronoun anaphora.
of which the third
person pronoun is the paramount example. is a relation between two referential
expressions, one of which has a virtual reference while the other does not. the
first one preceding the second. Thus the two expressions share their reference.
this being called corqfiwnw;
though it should be noted that corefercnce can
occur without anaphora. Such expressions as the third person pronoun. which
tzot?-~tzt1ottotttft~t.\
are deprived of virtual reference, are said to be wfiwttfiuli,~~
(non-uufonomc~.s
r.t;fi;rct?ficll/~~nzcnl).
which means that they cannot. by themselves, acquire an actual reference. Returning to anaphora and coreference. the
difference between the two relations is that, though coreferencc is a symmetric
relation, anaphora
is not, and, to account for anaphora,
the asymmetric
relation of ut~rawi~vzcr must be added to that of coreference. Antecedence
is
asymmetric in that it links two expressions with different rcfcrential status. one
of them being referentially autonomous
while the other is not.

171

A. Reboul I How much am I I?

According to Milner, although the third person pronoun is not referentially

autonomous
because it is deprived of virtual reference, the first and second
person pronouns,
which are not deprived of virtual reference, are nonetheless
non-autonomous
referentially
because their virtual reference is not independent of their use in an utterance.
In fact, still according
to Milner, their
virtual reference is defined for each of their uses. Thus they have a virtual
reference for each of their uses though no referential
autonomy,
because
referential autonomy
is defined independently
of use. Such words or expressions, which have a virtual reference when used, without having any when not
used, are said to be deictic.
We thus come back to the deictic/anaphoric
distinction
between first and
second person pronouns
and the third person pronoun;
the first and second
person pronouns,
which are deictic, can, when they occur in an utterance,
determine
by themselves their actual reference on the basis of the virtual
reference which they acquire through being used; the third person pronoun.
which is anaphoric,
can determine
its actual reference only through
the
anaphoric relationship which links it to a referentially autonomous
expression.
Thus, briefly, no personal pronoun has referential autonomy,
but, whereas
the third person pronoun, which is anaphoric,
is completely devoid of virtual
reference, the first and second person pronouns,
which are deictic, do have a
virtual reference of a kind, though it is not independent
of their use.

3. The linguistic account of personal pronouns

The linguistic account of pronouns
is mainly associated with Emile Benveniste and is discussed in several of his papers (cf. Benveniste
1966a,b,c,d).
Benveniste
tried to establish
what he called the system of pronouns
in
French,2 and most notably the role that pronouns
play in conjugation
of
verbs. It is thus the properly
linguistic and not the referential
aspect of
pronouns
that he was interested in. According
to him, the most important
feature of conjugation
is the notion of person, and what he tries to bring to
light is the oppositive system which makes each person (and each pronoun)
different from the others. He first notes the difference between the third
2

Despite

the fact

that

Benvenistes

account

is supposed

to be valid

for

French

and

not

necessarily for other languages, it seems to apply equally well to English. This may be because. as
we will see, it is based more than he thought on the referential properties of pronouns
and on
properties
referential

derived from these referential

and linguistic, properties.

properties

rather

than

on other,

supposedly

non-

person pronoun
and the two other singular pronouns.
Despite the fact that
all of them are called personal, the three persons are not identical. The lirst
two imply both a person determined by the situation (respectively the speaker
and the addressee) and a discourse about that person. The third person
pronoun is not related to a person (it designates someone who is not present
in the situation)
and is thus the linguistic
expression
of the ~UM-,OO~SO~I.
Benveniste notes also the fact that though I and JYM are singular. in the sense
that they designate only one determined person in each of their uses, this is not
the case for hq/.sh~
which can designate an infinity of different individuals. It
should also be noted. according to Benveniste. that I and you can be reversed:
i becomes JYIUand _IVUbecomes 1 when the speaker and the addressee reverse
their roles in dialogue. Lastly, only the third person pronoun (neutral) can he
used to speak of things; neither I nor ,IYM. by definition. can do this. Thus. in
Benvenistes
words, I and JYIU are opposed to i~,.siw in the c~or.r.clu~iotr o/
pcrsonulit~~
and this opposition
is due to the possession by the first two of a
person mark of which the last is deprivod.
This, however, is not the only way in which the dilfcrent persons arc
opposed: I and JVU are opposed to Izc:.shc in the correlation
of personhood.
but in the corrrlution
of .suhjrc,rivi~~~. I is opposed
to JYIU. Indeed. ~YIL~is not
only the addressee. It is also, and by definition, the person who is not-l. I is
the basic, transcendental.
person which is opposed
to JYIU both on the
grounds of interiority
and on those of transcendence.
It is the .SU/I~~JC~~IYJ
pwson
whereas JWU is the ,lorl-slrl?j~,(,~;l,~~pr.sott and both are opposed to /I(,.
SIKJwhich is the twn-prson.
It might be tempting
to think that I. because it designates
only one
individual.
and a determinate
one. is similar. if not identical. to ;I propel
name. This, however, is not true: while a proper name has not only one but
always the same referent, the referent of I changes with its use. T~LIS. the
reality to which pronouns
like I and JYJU refer is not. strictly speaking.
linguistically
determined.
It is in and through discourse, that is. by their
different uses, that their referents are determined.
Thus the identification
of
the referent of I depends crucially on the situation
of utterance.
on the
speaker and on the utterance in which it occurs. It also has the correlated
property of having no linguistic existence outside of discourse. In the same
of the referent of JOU depends crucially
on the
Way, the identification
situation of utterance, on the addressee and on the utterance itself where it
occurs. It should be noted that first and second person pronouns arc not the
only linguistic
forms which identify their referents through
situation
of
utterance or speaker: this is also true of demonstrativcs
and of some temporal

173

and you included, are

is dialogue
or
deictic and, according
to Benveniste,
their main function
interpersonal communication.
However, according to Benveniste, these are not
1 is not only a means of
the only characteristics
of the first person pronoun:
representing
subjectivity,
it is also its very foundation.
It is because of
language that subjectivity
is possible and the first and second person pronouns are universals present in all languages.
By contrast, the identification
of the referent of a third person pronoun is
independent
of the situution of communiccrtion or utterunce and of the speaker
nonor addressee. Thus the third person pronoun is not only a non-personal
incompatible
with
subjective pronoun.
it is also, according
to Benveniste,
and

spatial

adverbs.

All of these linguistic

forms,

deictic forms.

4. A few comments on both Benvenistes and Milners accounts of pronouns

Several features are common
to Milners and Benvenistes
accounts
of
personal
pronouns,
of which the most obvious
is the deictic/anaphoric
distinction
based on the contrast between the first and second person pronouns, which depend on the situation
of utterance
for the assignation
of
reference, and the third person pronoun,
which does not. However, this
assumption
about the reference of the third person pronoun is false: the third
person pronoun can be, and very often is, used in a demonstrative,
that is in a
deictic, way. Thus the distinction
between first and second person pronouns
and the third person pronoun
in terms of dependence
on or independence
from the situation
of communication
or utterance is not, strictly speaking,
linguistic. Though there does not seem to be much doubt that I and J~OUare
strictly deictic forms, that they are linguistically
marked as deictic, it is
certainly an overstatement,
to claim that he/she is a strictly anaphoric
form,
that it is linguistically
marked as anaphoric.
As far as the third person
pronoun is concerned,
the anaphoric/deictic
distinction
is, at best. a distinction between uses. not between linguistic forms.3
Thus, the basic distinction
between first and second person pronouns
and
the third person, common to both referential and linguistic theories, needs to

3 It should be noted that a recent book (cf. Bach 1987) is a defence of the thesis that the third
person prounoun
is basically demonstrative
(i.e. deictic) and that there are no uses of the third
person pronoun
where the referent
however discuss this very interesting

can be determined
and subtly argued

by purely linguistic
thesis here.

means.

I shall not

be weakened,
if not completely
abolished.
However, the anaphoric/deictic
distinction
applied to pronouns
is not my main concern here. What I would
like to discuss is Benvenistes claim that the third person pronoun
is a nonpersonal, non-subjective
pronoun.
First of all. it should be noted that if it is
true that it is non-personal,
this would entail that it is non-subjective.
In fact,
if it could be shown to be subjective, it would have to be personal as well.
though the reverse would not be true. So, showing it to be subjective is
showing it to be personal.
What does it mean to say that a pronoun is subjective? A quite simple and
basic answer is that to be subjective, a pronoun
must be able to represent
subjectivity,
something
which, obviously.
the first person pronoun
can do.
But the question is, can the third person pronoun do it? The answer is that
there is a linguistic construction,
called either ,f% intiirrct
st?,l~~:ttisc,ourscJ (a
translation
from the French st?dr indirect
lihw)
or rc~prescwtd
.sp~cch ot
thought
(most notably by Banfield, cf. Banfield 1982) in which the third
person pronoun
is used to represent the subjectivity
of an individual.
It
should also be noted that in represented speech or thought the third person
pronoun.
contrary
to Benvenistes
theory. is used conjointly
with deictic
forms, most notably nm~.
This, then, on the face of it, should be enough to show that hc4.rlrc~is a
subjective, hence personal, pronoun.
However, according to Benveniste, I is
the subjective pronoun
not only because it is used to represent subjectivity
but also because it is the very foundation
of subjectivity.
Whether or not
Benveniste is right on this point and whether or not the use of /rc~:.rhc~
in
represented
speech and thought
is enough to warrant
its subjective
and
personal character will be the main concern of this paper.

5. Is Benveniste right? Nozicks theory of self-reference

and subjectivity

Is Benveniste right when he claims that the first person pronoun is not only
a means of representing
subjectivity
but the very foundation of subjectivity?
If, as I believe, by the foundution
ofsubj~~c~ti,~it~~. he means that, without
the
first person pronoun,
subjectivity
would not be possible. it must be owned
that this sounds exaggerated. It would, in effect, mean that people deprived of
linguistic capacity, whether through sickness, accident or native infirmity. do
not have subjectivity.4
This does seem intuitively
to be false. We certainly
4 This, of course, depends very much on what is meant by .\uhjc,c,!il,i/Jr It should be clear that
there is not a single theory of subjectivity on which everyone is agreed. Suhjectlvity can be detined

would want to say that, even without the ability to speak, people do have
subjectivity and some of us might even want to claim that animals do as well.
It should, however, be noted that the claim that, without a first person
pronoun,
no subjectivity
would be possible, has been proposed, quite independently of Benvenistes work, by the American philosopher
Robert Nozick
(cf. Nozick 1981). According to Nozick, being an ego, having subjectivity,
is
tantamount
to having the capacity for reflexive self-reference.
The capacity
for self-reference is characteristic
of the token-reflexive
I which can be said to
have internal wference. Thus it follows from its sense that the term I refers
to the producer of that very token (of its type), and that the person is referred
to in virtue of the property
he acquires in the very act of referring or
producing the token, the property of being the producer of that token. It is
part of the sense of the term I that it so refers from the inside (Nozick
1981: 75-76). In fact, I is the producer of this very token with this intention
of invoking
a device of necessary
self-reference
in virtue of a property
exhibited in the tokening (Nozick 1981: 78).
However, there is more to Nozicks examination
of I than the simple
statement
of its reflexive and self-referential
character.
According
to him,
producing an utterance which contains a first person pronoun is, as far as the
first person is concerned, tantamount
to accomplishing
an act of reflexive selfreference, around which the Z itself, the ego, the subjectivity,
is synthesized.
In other words, one does not have an ego before the act of reflexive selfreference in which Z occurs and one does not have an ego after this act. It is
only during the accomplishment
and in the accomplishment
of this act, that
its producer acquires an ego, a subjectivity;
the act of reflexive self-reference
is ipso facto accompanied
by a self-synthesis.
Nozicks theory is thus stronger than Benvenistes because Benveniste does
not link the occurrence
of Z, but rather the ability of using Z, with the
possession
of subjectivity.
In contrast
with Benveniste,
Nozick offers an
argument
which, he claims, proves the existence of a link between reflexive
self-reference and self-synthesis.
This argument is worth discussing.

or described
spatio-temporal
however,

in various

is intuitively

consciousness

ways. the most simple being perhaps

coordinates
rather

which

a determined

individual

that subjectivity
occupies

is the set of all the

during

poor and one could wish to add to that the double

(or even self-consciousness)

and memory

of past events.

existence.
requirement

The problem

tivity which touches both the problem of self-identity

and that of consciousness
complicated
one which I shall not discuss here. I shall take subjectivity as a primitive,
definition

to intuition.

This,
of

of subjecis a very
leaving its

Nozick remarks that it is impossible to be in error as to which object is

referred to by I. Let us be clear about this: Nozick does not claim that we
cannot be in error as to our own properties, our own name, our own sex. our
own size, our own abilities, etc. What he claims is that we cannot be in error
as to whom we are designating
when we say I. If I. Anne Reboul, utter the
sentence in (I). I am in error on a certain range of things, my sex. my social
position, etc. Thus, the proposition
expressed by (I), when I utter (I), is false:
but it is not false because I am not I, it is false because I am not Napoleon
Bonaparte :
(I) Anne

Reboul:

I am Napoleon

Bonaparte.

It should be noted that, despite the deictic character which JYM shares with I.
the situation is very different for the second person pronoun:
I can be in error
when I say you, because I can think that I am addressing someone when I am
in fact addressing someone else. However, I cannot say I thinking that I am
speaking of someone else. Thus, if I say (2) believing I am speaking to my son
NathanaEl
when I am in fact speaking to my son Alexander
(because, for
instance, I have not looked up from my work to see which one has just come
into my office), 1 am in error as to whom ,r~u designates:
(2) Anne Reboul (speaking to Alexander
to Nathanael):
There you are. Where is Alexander?

and believing

that she is speaking

Thus it seems that Nozick is right: we cannot be in error as to whom we are

speaking about when we speak about ourselves, whereas we can when we
speak about someone else. In other words, when 1 say I, there is no I apart
from myself which I can designate, whereas when I say JWU, JWU can designate
anyone whom I am addressing, apart from myself.
Thus Nozick seems to be right as to this form of personal infallibility
and,
according to him, the only explanation
for it is that only an object synthesized by the act of referring is guaranteed
to be hit by that act (Nozick 1981 :
90). This explanation,
it should be noted, means that when we say I. we are
not referring to ourselves as objects in the world. but as egos, subjectivities.
The corollary is that we cannot, by using I. refer to ourselves as objects in the
world but only as subjectivities.
Thus, it seems we each must have a kind of
access to ourselves which is not via a term or referring expression. not via
knowing that a term holds true (of something or other) (Nozick 1981: 81).

As will have been noted by now, Nozicks

than Benvenistes. Roughly, it can be expressed

thesis is much more complex

by the following propositions:

(3) Nozick s thesis

(i) I is an instance of reflexive self-reference.
(ii) The utterance of Z is tantamount
to the accomplishment
of an act
of reflexive self-reference.
(iii) The act of reflexive self-reference characteristic
of an utterance of I
is accompanied
ipsofacto by a self-synthesis
of the corresponding
ego or subjectivity.
(iv) The ego or subjectivity
has no existence outside of self-synthesis,
that is outside of an act of reflexive self-reference,
i.e. of an
utterance of I.
(v) Z is not a referential
term in that its referent does not have to
satisfy any specific conditions,
Is Nozick right about the link between our personal
infallibility
and his
theory of subjectivity as self-synthesis
through reflexive self-reference?
Before
examining the validity of his argumentation,
we turn to another fact, noticed
by David Kaplan, which supports point (v) in Nozicks theory.

6. Kaplan and the representational/computational

view of I

I will not go into the details of Kaplans

very interesting
theory of
demonstratives
and indexicals. Rather I will just take up one of his remarks
which concerns
the first person pronoun
and has bearings
on Nozicks
hypothesis that Z is not a referential term in that its referent does not have to
satisfy specific conditions. If I were a referential term in the same way, as for
example, a definite description,
(e.g. the black cat Anne Reboul bought on
November 17th 1991), its referent would have to satisfy some conditions
specified by its linguistic meaning (in the case of the black cat ., being a cat,
being black, having been bought by Anne Reboul on November
17th 1991).
In other words, there would be some formula
with which I would be
semantically
equivalent
(i.e. synonymous),
which would constitute its lexical
or linguistic meaning. Moreover, its contribution
to the proposition
expressed
by the utterance in which it occurs would be that linguistic meaning and not
the individual
it designates. What would be the linguistic meaning of I? The
simplest formula which comes to mind is something like the producer of this

utterance. Thus the producer of this utterurwe would be synqnymous

with I,
would constitute its linguistic meaning and its contribution
to the proposition
expressed by the utterance.
Yet, according to Kaplan, this view has absurd
consequences
as can be shown by example (4):
(4) I do not exist.
If the producer qf this utterance was what I contributed
to the proposition
expressed by (4), this proposition
would be something like (5):
(5) The producer

of this utterance

does not exist.

This however would mean that the proposition

expressed by (4) could never
be true, which implies that it is impossible that I do not exist. This, of course,
is absurd and it can be concluded that the producer of this uttcrrrmc is not
what I contributed
to the proposition
expressed.
Yet, intuitively,
there does seem be a close link between I and such a
formula as the producer of this utterance. In a recent paper, Wilson and
Sperber have suggested one way of accounting
for this. Their account is
based on the representational/computational
distinction.
According to them.
An utterance can thus be expected to encode two basic types of information:
representational
and computational.
or descriptive and procedural
~ that is,
information
about the representations
to be manipulated.
and information
about how to manipulate
them (Wilson and Sperber
1990: 96). If t/w
producer qf this utterance was what I contributed
to the proposition expressed,
the representathe formula the producer of this utterance, would constitute
tional meaning of I. Sperber and Wilson suggest, however. that the formula
the producer of this utterunce, constitutes not the representational
meaning of
I but its computational
meaning, that is information
about how to process 1.
This means that the formula the producer of this uttemncc would not be what
I contributes
to the proposition
expressed. Its contribution
would be its
referent. Thus. the proposition
expressed by (4) would not be (5) but (6):
(4) I do not exist.
(5) The producer of this utterance
(6) Anne Reboul does not exist.

does not exist

While (6) does not happen to be true. it might

raised by Kaplan disappears.

have been, and the problem

A. Rehoul

: How much am I I?

179

Thus, it seems that Nozick is right at least as far as his fifth proposition
is
concerned: I is not a referential expression in the sense that its referent would
have to satisfy any specific conditions
if the resulting proposition
is to be
true. Whether this means that Nozick is right about the other propositions
of
his thesis still has to be determined.

7. Is I merely a means of representing subjectivity or its very foundation?

In the preceding discussion, I have tried to show, with the help of Kaplan
and Sperber and Wilson, that one of Nozicks claims at least is true: I is not a
referential expression in the sense in which a definite description is a referential expression. This can hardly come as a surprise. But it is this fact, together
with personal infallibility,
which led Nozick to advance his strong subjectivity
thesis according to which I is the foundation
of subjectivity.
If, as I think we
must, we accept these two premises of Nozicks theory, whether or not we
accept the remainder of his theory will depend on our answer to the question:
Do the computational character of I together with personal infallibility entail
points (i). (ii), (iii) and (iv) of Nozicks theory?
(i)
(ii)

I is an instance of reflexive self-reference.

The utterance of I is tantamount
to the accomplishment
of an act of
reflexive self-reference.
(iii) The act of reflexive self-reference characteristic
of I is accompanied
ipso
facto by a self-synthesis of the corresponding
ego or subjectivity.
(iv) The ego or subjectivity has no existence outside of self-synthesis,
that is
outside of an act of reflexive self-reference, i.e. of an utterance of I.
It should first of all be noted that the computational
character of Z is, or
corresponds
to, point (i) if we understand
reflexive selfreference
(in the case
of Z) as designating
the computational
process described by the formula
identlfi as referent the producer of this utterance. (ii) is directly derived from
(i) if we accept, as I think we should, that reference is an act. What, in fact, is
in question is whether points (i) and (ii) together with personal infallibility,5
entail or support in any way points (iii) and (iv). They certainly do not do so
independently.
There is nothing to show that reflexive self-reference, or rather

It should

a fact which.

be clear by now that personal

according

to him, supports

infallibility
it.

is not a part of Nozicks

theory

but rather

the act of reflexive self-reference, understood

as above, entails a self-synthesis
of any kind. To see this, it is enough to consider the temporal deictic IIOII~.
This shares with I its reflexive and self-referential
character. For this reason.
its use should be considered
as an act of reflexive self-reference.
but one
would certainly not want to say that it is @so Jircto accompanied
by selfsynthesis. So there does not seem to be any reason to postulate a necessary
link between an act of reflexive self-reference and self-synthesis.
Recall that, according to Nozick, the only explanation
for personal infallibility, or more generally for any kind of referential
infallibility.
should it
exist, is that the referent comes into existence through
the very act of
reference which designates
it. To see if this is the case, we shall try to
reformulate
personal
infallibility
more precisely. in terms of the .s,II)~~LIX.~~I
rqfirence/semuntic
rqf&rrncr distinction.
This distinction,
though not initiated
by Donnellan,
was adopted and made more precise by him, notably as far as
the intentions
of the speaker are concerned (cf. Donnellan
1979). One could
see the speaker reference/semantic
reference distinction
from a cognitive
perspective:
on this view, speaker reference relates to a process by which the
referent is determined
through
the speakers referential
intentions.
while
semantic reference relates to a process by which the referent is determined
through either the representational
or the computational
meaning
of the
referential expression. As far as linguistic reference is concerned, it should be
clear that no referential expression is ever used only for speaker reference or
only for semantic reference. but the distinction
is useful and will be specifically useful in specifying the problem of personal infallibility.
What, exactly. is involved in personal infallibility
or. more generally. in
referential
infallibility?
As a more basic first step. when can we say that
reference is successful? The answer is simple: when the referent determined by
speaker reference and the referent determined
by semantic
reference are
identical.
If this were always the case. we would have universal referential
infallibility.
However. we do not need a lengthy or detailed examination
01
the actual workings of reference in everyday life to see that this is not the
case: universal referential infallibility
does not exist. However, this does not
imply that limited referential infallibility
does not exist and. as a matter of
fact. personal infallibility
is a specific case of referential infallibility,
perhaps
even the only indisputable
case of referential infdllibihty.
How, then, should we describe personal infallibility
in terms of the speaker
reference/semantic
reference distinction?
When we produce
an utterance
containing
I. what we have in mind, our referential
intentions
as speaker,
determine
the same object in the world as the computational
procedure

described in the formula ident$v as rqferent the producer of this utterance

(which constitutes
the computational
meaning
of Z) and (this is where
infallibility
comes in) always does. In other words, for every utterance of Z,
speaker reference coincides with semantic reference.
The problem, for Nozicks thesis that the first person pronoun is the very
foundation
of subjectivity.
is how to explain this. Here, a comparison
with
another indexical which does not involve referential
infallibility
might be
useful. Let us return to example (2):
(2) Anne Reboul (speaking to Alexander
to Nathanael :
There you are. Where is Alexander?

and believing

that she is speaking

The case of JVU is interesting because of its very similarity to and difference
from I: both are indexicals,
both have computational
meanings
but no
representational
meaning;
but the formula which constitutes
Zs computational meaning designates as its referent the producer of the utterance, while
the formula which constitutes ~0~s computational
meaning designates as its
referent the addressee of the utterance;
and Z is accompanied
by personal
infallibility,
while you can boast of no referential infallibility.
In example (2)
there is a mismatch
between speaker reference (Anne Rebouls referential
intentions
concern Nathanael)
and semantic
reference (the computational
meaning of jou in utterance
(2) will pick out Alexander).
Why is such a
mismatch possible when we use J~OU.while it is impossible when we use I? The
most obvious answer has to do with the other difference between Z and you:
the difference in their computational
meanings. The meaning of I involves the
speaker of the utterance
while that of j~ou involves the addressee of the
utterance. However, though this explains why Z and JOU(when they occur in
the same utterance) do not pick out the same referent
does not seem to account for personal infallibility:
(7) It is you I am talking

(as in (7) below),

it

to.

Thus, the semantic aspect of reference is not enough to explain the difference
between Z and JOU. as far as referential infallibility
is concerned. Naturally we
turn to the question of speaker reference, that is to the speakers referential
intentions and, more specifically, to their content. Going back to example (2)
the speakers intentions involve NathanaEl. But what does this mean? Does it
mean that the speakers intentions
involve a description
which the referent

must satisfy in order

distinction
introduced
answer.
This distinction

to be the intended
referent?
by Donnellan
(cf. Donnellan

is not a distinction

between

Here, an appeal to a
197 I) might lead to an

aspects

of linguistic

reference

(such as the speaker reference/semantic

reference distinction);
rather it is a
distinction
between two uses of referential expressions and. more precisely.
between two uses of definite descriptions.
The two uses of definite descriptions which interest Donnellan
are the rt~fiwt~tial
and the uttrihutiw
uses: A
speaker who uses a definite description
attributively
in an assertion states
something about whoever or whatever is the so-and-so. A speaker who uses a
definite description
referentially
in an assertion, on the other hand, uses the
description
to enable his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking
about and states something
about that person or thing (Donnellan
197 I :
198). These two uses of definite descriptions
can occur in different utterances
of the same definite description in the same sentence:
To

illustrate

murderer

this distinction.

in the case of a single sentence. consider the sentence. Smith\

is insane. Supposc first

that WC come upon poor Smith

brutal manner of the killing

and the fact that Smith

WC might exclaim. Smiths

murderer

in a quite ordinary

that Jones has been charged with

we are referring.
referential

by usmg this description.

use of the definite description.

lhc

Smiths

(though this is not in the end

use of the dofnite

murder

murderer

(...)

We might sum up our

1s insane. If someone asks to whom

the answer here is Jones.

(Donnellan

deacrlption.

and has been placed on II-ial

of Joness odd behavior at his trial.

of his behavior by saying. Smiths

From

will assume. to make it ;t simpler case. thal

I shall say, IS an attributl\e

Imagine that there is a discussion

impression

sense wc do not know who murdered Smith

essential to the case). This.

Suppose

is insane.

foully murdered.

was the most lovable person in the wet-Id.

Thi\.

shall say. I\ :I

1971 : 19X)

These two uses of definite descriptions

will have different results when
nothing satisfies the description.
In both uses. the speaker presupposes
or
implies that there is something or someone which satisfies the description.
In
the case of attributive
use, if nothing satisfies the description,
no referent can
be picked out. In the case of referential
use, even if nothing satisfies the
description,
it is still possible to assign a referent. This can be explained by
the fact that in the referential use, it is presupposed
or implied not only that
there is something
or someone which satisfies the description
but also that
there is a specific thing or individual
which does. As a final remark on the
referential/attributive
distinction,
it should be noted that a definite description used referentially
and a definite description
used attributively
do not
impose the same requirements
on their report: When a speaker says. The @
if there is no a, we cannot
is Y. where -the CJ is used attributively.

correctly report the speaker as having said of this or that person or thing that
it is Y. But if the definite description
is used referentially
we can report the
speaker as having attributed
Y to something. And i<r may refer to what the
speaker referred to, using whatever description
or name suits our purpose
(Donnellan
1971: 209). In other words, we can choose our own referential
expression to report a definite description
used referentially
(as long, that is.
as our referential
expression
picks out the same referent as the original
definite description)
whereas we are bound to the same definite description
when we report a definite description used attributively.
How can the attributive/referential
distinction
help us to determine
the
difference between speaker reference with I and speaker reference with JVU? If
we return to what Donnellan
says of the attributive/referential
distinction and
link this with the speaker reference/semantic
reference distinction,
we can see
that although in attributive
and referential
uses both speaker and semantic
references play a role, it is obvious that this role is not the same in each case.
As Donnellan
points out. one and the same definite description
in one and
the same sentence can be used sometimes attributively,
sometimes referentially, depending on the utterance and on the intentions
of the speaker. This
strongly suggests that the difference between attributive
and referential uses
will not be found in semantic reference but in speaker reference. It also helps
to illuminate
the question
of why the mismatch
between description
and
referent does not hinder reference assignment
in referential use while it does
in attributive
use. What is the difference
between
speaker reference in
attributive
use and speaker reference in referential use? In the first case, one
could say that the object of the speakers referential intentions
is whatever or
whoever satisfies the definite description
used; in the second case, however,
the object of the speakers referential
intentions
is a determinate
thing or
individual
whether or not this determinate
thing or individual
satisfies the
definite description used. In other words, in attributive
use, the content of the
speakers referential
intentions
is the very definite description
which he
actually used, whereas. in referential use. the content of the speakers referential intentions
can be a whole range of information
identifying,
for him at
least, a definite individual or thing.
If we apply the attributive/referential
distinction
to first and second person
pronouns,
what can we say about the difference between speaker reference
with I and speaker reference with JVU? First of all. is it possible or even
legitimate to apply a distinction fashioned for definite descriptions to personal
pronouns?
It should be noticed that the distinction
between attributive
use
and referential use is not linguistic but pragmatic. This implies that, provided

a referential expression satisfies the conditions

for applying the distinction.
it
should be applied even if the referential expression is not a definite description. There does seem to be a fundamental
condition
for its application
and
this is the requirement
that the definite description is such that it will pick out
a unique thing or individual.
This is not as obvious as it might seem. but
quite apart from the possibility of applying the attributive/referential
distinction to referential expressions which do not determine a unique individual or
thing as their referent, it should be noted that both definite descriptions
and
first and second person pronouns do determine a unique thing or individual
as their referent. True, definite descriptions
and first and second
person
pronouns do not determine their (unique) referents in the same way: whereas
semantic reference in definite descriptions
determines
the referent through
representational
meaning (definite descriptions
are not strong in computational meaning),
semantic
reference in first and second person pronouns
determines
the referent through computational
meaning (first and second
person pronouns are not strong in representational
meaning).
This difference, however, should not worry us. What matters is whether we
can use first and second person pronouns
in two different ways. in one of
which the speakers referential
intentions
concern a determinate
individual
while in the othei- they concern any individual
picked out by the pronoun.
This is certainly the case for the second person pronoun:
we can all remember
instances of utterances such as (8) in western or cloak and dagger movies or
stories:
(8) You. whoever
As Donnellan
uhutever

it ix

If this

you are, come into the open if you dare.

points out, the possibility

of tagging ~~~/zoc~c~/X/S/U, i.s and
to a definite
description
in an utterance, is a linguistic test OI

requirement

did constitute

rcfcrential~attributIve

dlstinction.

us. however,

the following

(I)

consider

the fundamcnt:tl

the distinction

aould

condition

for the application

not pply to non-dclinitc

of the

dcscrlptlona.

Let

example:

I am looking for a Siamese cat wjith ;i squint.

This sentence

is ambiguous

in that. depending

on its different

through a regrettably perverted taste, I am looking

and any Siamese cat with a squint will do. or that
happens

to have a squint in which case

animal

satisfying

successfully
corresponding

the description

analysed

in terms

to an utterance

second corresponding

I
I am looking for 3 determinate

will not

do.

These

two

of the attributive:referential
in which

to an utterance

utterances.

it can either mun

th>it.

for a squint-eyed Siamese ut to keep ~5 ii pet

am looking for my I;i\orite Siamcsc cat which

the non-dctinitc

cross-cycd

interpretations
distinction.

dcscriptlon

in which the non-detinite

animal
c;m.

and an>

I thnh. hc

the first intcrprctation

IS used attrihutl\clq,

description

the

i\ used rcferenr~all~.

A. Rtbd

indication

185

! HOK, much am I I.?

of its being used attributively.

As there is no doubt

that we most

often use JQU referentially

as in example (2). that is with a determinate
individual in mind, there does not seem to be any doubt that JVU can be used
either referentially
(as in (2)) or attributively
(as in (8)).
This, however, does not seem to be the case for I. This is not because it is
impossible to tag &zoever Z am to an occurrence of I in an utterance. Though
we have to think of rather exotic circumstances,
such as amnesia, it is possible
to imagine a sentence such as I, whoever I am, . .. being uttered. What does
seem to be doubtful
in such a case, however, is that the speaker of this
utterance does not know to whom exactly he is referring by using I: what he
does not know are properties which the referent of Z, that is he himself, bears,
such as his exact age, familial and social situation, home, profession, etc. The
fact that we cannot use / attributively
seems linked to another interesting
fact, which is that Z (in use) cannot lack a referent. This, in its turn, is linked
to the computational
meaning
of Z, and so we come back to personal
infallibility.
Personal infallibility
in Z, we said, as well as the absence of
referential
infallibility
in you, is to be explained
by a difference between
speaker reference in Z and speaker reference in JYIU.
What is this difference and is it sufficient to explain the personal infallibility
of Z and the lack of referential infallibility
in JYIU? The answer to the first
question is the following: what determines speaker reference in you, when you
is used attributively,
is something like fhr referent is the addressee and, when
JYIUis used referentially,
it is any subset of a range of identifying information
about the referent (i.e. which identifies that referent for the speaker). Speaker
reference in Z is quite different in nature
in that we have what is often called
privileged accen to ourselves. I shall not go into the details of what is meant
exactly by privileged access. A sufficient description
of privileged access for
the present purpose is to say that having privileged access to something (in
this instance oneself) is having immediate access, not having to pass through
a formula or identifying description
of any kind. In other words, though we
have to identify objects and individuals
(other than ourselves) through their
properties, we do not have to identify ourselves to ourselves. Note that this
does not mean that we have direct access to what properties
we actually
possess but just that we do not identify ourselves through our possession of
these properties.
Coming back to our example of an amnesic individual,

The

problem of what IS meant exactly by priGle&

and difficult problems

of what exactly

subjectivity

obviously important
for a study of personal
is not the place to treat them.

UCCCS.Iis linked to the no less mysterious

is and of self-consciousness.

pronouns

and more specifically

Though

they are

for a study of I, this

though such a person might wonder about some of the properties

he
possesses. he does not wonder who he himself is. This, however, certainly
does not by itself explain personal infallibility.
But if we consider speaker
reference in I and semantic reference in I, the first being constituted
by
privileged access and the second by the computational
formula i&t$t~
(IS
referent the producer of this utterance.
they together explain personal infallibility in that the object picked out by speaker reference and the object picked
out by semantic reference cannot fail to be the same.
Does this support Nozicks view of reflexive self-reference being ipso fi~c/o
accompanied
by self-synthesis
and the Benveniste-Nozick
claim that without
the first pronoun
there would be no subjectivity?
I think that it does not:
privileged access is not dependent either on our saying I or on our ability to
do so. It might be objected that privileged access is not subjectivity.
This is
true, but privileged access is one of the components
of subjectivity and. what
is more, it is certainly the only part of subjectivity which has anything to do
with self-referring,
reference to oneself.
So we come back to the question raised in the title of this paragraph:
is I
the very foundation
or the mere representation
of subjectivity? From what WC
have just seen, I think that it can be concluded that I is not the foundation
of
subjectivity but its representation
and that subjectivity, existing independently
of I, could be represented independently
of I. Whether it is and whether /I(>:
SIIP is the right candidate for such a representation
is the question to which
we turn now.

8. Can the third person pronoun represent subjectivity?

Let us return to the linguistic

construction
which
that is represented
positive answer to that question,
Consider the three following examples:

seems to warrant
a
speech or thought.

(9) Peter said: The cat is on the mat.

(IO) Peter said that the cat was on the mat
(I 1) The cat was on the mat.
(9), (IO) and (I 1) may all involve
(IO) involves indirect speech

speech,

represented

speech

(or thought).

reported speech but (9) involves direct

and (I 1) involves ,free indirect sprech or

A.

Rehoul i Hm

much cttn I I?

187

I will not go into the details of represented

speech or thought
quickly outline the main points of Banfields description
of it:

but I will

(i)

represented speech and thought can be found only in literary works and
not in spoken discourse or in written non-literary
works;
(ii) it has a certain number of syntactic characteristics:
(a) it is not embedded: it has no preface of the type X suqs that
. or X
thinks that . . .;
(b) it is a complete sentence;
(c) it can include constructions
which are characteristic
of direct discourse;
(d) it shows the coexistence
of a verbal past time (preterite or past
progressive) with present time deictics (nobv, to&J,, etc.); it excludes
the first person pronoun (relatively) and the second person pronoun
(absolutely);
it uses (more or less) exclusively
the third person
pronoun;
(iii) represented speech and thought involves the representation
of subjectivity by use of the third person pronoun.
The first point has been debated veryoften, rightly
represented
speech is concerned.
However, what I
more detail here is Banfields claim that first and
cannot be found in represented speech or thought.
pronoun is concerned, this is obviously false, as the
Great Expectutions)
shows:

I think, at least as far as

would like to discuss in
second person pronouns
As far as the first person
following example (from

(12) My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality;
Miss Havisham
was going to make my fortune on a grand scale.
(Dickens 1965)
There are many such examples of represented
speech or thought in the first
person both in French and in English. Less common in represented speech or
thought is the second person. I have, however, been able to find an example
in French in Michel Butors novel, La Modzjication:
(13) Lapres-midi,
cest decide, vous vous promenerez
dans toute cette
partie de la ville ou lon rencontre a chaque pas les ruines des anciens
monuments
de 1Empire (. . .).
Vous traverserez le Forum, vous monterez au Palatin, et la chaque
Pierre presque, chaque mur de brique vous rappellera quelque parole

de Cecile, quelque chose que vous avez lue ou apprise pour pouvoir lui
en faire part; vous regarderez depuis le palais de Septime Severe le soir
tomber sur les crocs des termes de Caracalla qui se dressent au milieu
des pins.

(Butor

1957: 86)

Thus, it seems that Banfield is wrong about the impossibility

of represented
speech or thought in the first and second person. This, I think, is due to her
insistence
on the thesis that represented
speech or thought is outside of
communication.
that is, outside of a situation in which there is a speaker and
an addressee.* Still the very possibility of represented
speech or thought in
the first, second and third person has to be explained. I think that it can bc
explained in part on the basis of the following rules which apply to reported
speech (or thought):

(9 when the speaker reports his own discourse or thought:

he must use I to
refer to himself;
(ii) when the speaker reports his own or someone elses discourse or thought
about his addressee: he must use _rou to refer to his addressee;
(iii) when the speaker reports the discourse of someone different from the
addressee: he must use he/she or another coreferential
expression to refer
to the speaker of the original discourse or subject of the original thought.

Although these rules apply to all varieties of reported speech, the third is not
sufficient to account for represented speech or thought which does not allow
coreferential
expressions
for the representation
of subjectivity.
I will come
back to this point later.
What are the justifications
for these rules? The first rule is justified by the
fact that the speaker must speak of himself in the first person because if he
did not it could,be thought that he is trying to mislead his hearers about his
own identity or his own knowledge of his own identity:
(13) Anne Reboul: It is impossible
in this matter.

to understand

Anne

Rebouls

attitude

The second rule is justified by the fact that the speaker who is speaking to or
about his addressee
must designate
him by the second person or court
misunderstanding.
The third rule comes from the fact that when the speaker
*

I refer the reader

to the very title of her book:

Cmpeukuhke .Scr~/cvwv.

reports a discourse which is neither his nor his addressees, he must use the
third person pronoun as neither the first nor the second person would allow a
satisfactory assignment
of reference. A few examples might be useful:
(14) Peter: I do not understand
Anne Rebouls attitude.
(15a) Peter to John: I said that I did not understand
Anne Rebouls/her
*your attitude.
*my attitude.
(I 5b) John to A.R.: Peter said that he did not understand
your attitude.
*his/her attitude.
*my attitude.
(15~) John to Paul: Peter said that he did not understand
Anne Rebouls/her
*my attitude.
*your attitude.

attitude.

attitude.

Thus the rules indicated above are not syntactic rules governing the transformation from direct to indirect speech; they stem directly from the computational meanings of the first, second and third person pronouns:
if these are
not complied with the sentences are not ungrammatical.
but the processing of
the corresponding
utterances does not yield the intended referents.
What, then, can be said of represented
speech or thought in the first and
second person? As far as the first person is concerned, the answer is simple:
in example (12) above, the speaker, that is Pip,9 is complying
with rule (i)
above. The problem raised by example (I 3) is both more complex and more
interesting.
I will not go into it in detail but will only give a sketchy account.
To do this, I consider another example:
(16) Mais alors, comme brouhaha la-dedans, quest-ce quil y avait! A cinq
heures du matin. tu avais dabord le courrier de Lus, le courrier de
Baurriere, le petit courrier de Valence, la voiture de Die: tout ca qui
partait. Tu etais levee depuis quatre heures, tu avais bu ton cafe, tu
avais month les eaux chaudes pour les barbes, fait les bottes et brosse
les houppelandes.
Tu avais meme eu le temps de prendre un air de feu

I am neglecting

fictional

discourse

here the fictional

in the framework

nature

of Grrut

of relevance

E.~pec~furion.~. For a general

theory,

see Reboul

(forthcoming).

treatment

of

a la cuisine,

a moins

quil y ait des dames dans le lot. Ce qui arrivait

rarement lhiver. Du temps que ces messieurs se raclaient

(Giono 1950: 76-~77)
tu avais un peu la paix.
It seems

to me that

what

happens

in (13) is essentially

la couenne,

snnilar

to what

happens in (16) and is thus not peculiar to represented speech or thought. In

other words, (13) is the representation
by represented speech or thought of a
thought or discourse which used the second person in the same way as it is
used in (16). How is it used in (16)? (I 6) relates the experiences of the speaker
but relates them in the second person: thus these experiences are related as it
they were those of the addressee.
What should we say now of represented
speech and thought in the third
person? Notice, first of all, that what has to be explained is not the use of the
third person to refer to an individual
who is neither the speaker nor the
addressee
this is explained by rule (iii) above
but why it is impossible to
use a coreferential
expression. To account for this, we shall turn to a theory
of the third person pronoun as an interpretive lo term. Hector-Neri
Castanedas theory of quasi-indicators.

9. Castafiedas theory of quasi-indicators

Castaiiedas theory of quasi-indicators
is part of his more general theory of
reference (see Castaneda
1979a,b, and 1989). Castatiedas theory of reference
is based on the distinction
between different problems often confused under
the general term of rc~f&rnw:
that is the reference a given
individual makes to an entity by the simple fact of thinking of it. w;hether
this thought is or is not reported linguistically:
(ii) what he calls .wc~~17rl person uttrihutim
ofrqf&rc~tw.
that is the attribution
that the speaker makes, rightly or wrongly. of an act of refercncc to an
individual
other than himself or to an individual
that he believes to be
other than himself;
(iii) the denotation
which is inscribed in a language or idiolect.

(9 what he calls

In our

own

first

terms,

prrson

thinking

Hurst person

rcf&wm~,

thinking

reference

is speaker

reference.

A. Rehoul

denotation

inscribed

/)

in a language

How mucham 1 I?
or idiolect

is semantic

191

reference

and

second person attribution

of reference is reported
speech (or thought).
According
to Castafieda,
the fundamental
type of reference is first person
thinking
reference
and the ultimate
aim of interpersonal
and primary
communication
is the revelation
of the propositions
in the mind of some
persons in order that other persons apprehend them (Castaiieda
1979b: 127).
This view of reference and communication
leads Castaiieda to a distinction
between propositional
opacity and propositional
transparency.
This distinction should not be confused with the more traditional
referential
opacity/
referential
transparency
distinction.
The latter distinction
amounts
to the
following: in some contexts of reported thought (or speech), typically created
by the presence of a cognitive verb such as believe, it is not possible to
substitute salva veritate one referential expression with another, coreferential
one :
(I 7a) John believes that Seneca was Alexanders teacher.
(17b) Seneca = Neros teacher.
(17~) *John believes that Neros teacher was Alexanders

teacher.

The asterisk does not indicate the ungrammaticality

of (I 7c) but its falsity. In
other words, though it may be true that John believes Seneca to have been
Alexanders
teacher and true that Seneca was Neros teacher, this does not
make it true that John believes that Neros teacher was Alexanders teacher.
In terms of referential opacity or referential
transparency,
we can say that
(17a) is referentially
opaque which just means that a coreferential
term
cannot
be substituted
salvu veritute for Seneca. The distinction
between
propositional
opacity and propositional
transparency
is concerned
with the
same type of linguistic construction
as the distinction
between referential
opacity and referential transparency
but this is where the similarity ends.
The distinction
between referential
opacity and referential
transparency
concerns the truth of the proposition
expressed by an utterance containing
an
orutio obliquu clausell when certain modifications
are made within the orutio
obliquu clause. On the other hand, the distinction
between propositional
opacity and propositional
transparency
concerns
the faithfulness
of the
utterance to the original utterance or thought. More precisely, it concerns the
faithfulness of the second person attribution
of reference in the orutio obliquu

I1 I.e. the part following tkrr in a constructlon

of type X es rhar
where 10 e is a cognitive
of some sort. Orutio ohliqua is indirect speech, orulicl rectu direct speech.

verb

clause (the referential expression used in this part of the utterance) to the first
person thinking
reference (the referential
expressions
used in the original
thought
or utterance).
However,
if WC consider
an example of reported
speech, we can see that this faithfulness
does not depend upon the original
utterance being reproduced
wrhtim:
one would not report an utterance in
which such indexicals as I and JYJU are used by an orutio ohliqw clause
in
which I and JYM occur in the same places. With this in mind, Castafieda
introduces the notion of yuusi-in~li~.NtoI..Y
in answer to the question:

The answer provided

by CastaCeda
is very simple: there is a perfectly
accessible way of. so to speak. capturing another persons indexical references
intact, so that one can formulate another persons indcxical statements
qua
indexical. This way consists in the use of what [Castaiieda
has] elsewhere
called quasi-indicators
(Castatieda
1989: 138).
Thus, to the distinction
between referential opacity and referential transparency and the distinction
between propositional
opacity and propositional
transparency
must be added the distinction
between indicators
and quasiindicators.
Like the distinction
between referential and attributive
USC. that
between indicators
and quasi-indicators
is not a distinction
between words
but between uses. Still, indexicals such as 1. .\YM, /w.s/wti~i.~,l~cw~t/wr~~~.
mu1
are most often used as indicators, while /?(~/~~/~~.\.(~~;.sIIc.II(I..s(/~:
thcw, t/w1 art
most often used as quasi-indicators.
Roughly the distinction amounts to this:
the same word is used as an indicator when it is used in a demonstratihc
01
indexical way in first person thinking reference and as a quasi-indicator
when
it is used in second person attribution
of reference (that is attribution
of
demonstrative
or indexical reference). Thus. the third person pronoun can be
used to report the indexical reference of another individual and to report it as
indexical. There is, of course, ;I strong link between the distinction
between
propositional
opacity and propositional
transparency
and the notion of ;I
quasi-indicator,
at least in the cases where the reported speech or thought
contains indicators or indexical reference. In such casts. the report is propositionally transparent
if the oratio obtiqua clause reporting the original thought
or utterance contains quasi-indicators
in the places where indicators are LISCC!
in the original.
It can be argued. and I have done so elsewhere (see Reboul 1993). that

A. Rchoul ;

in some cases, utterances

containing

Hon.much

oratio

cm, I I.?

obliqua

193

clauses

are unacceptable

if the oratio obliqua clause is not propositionally

transparent.
I will not
discuss this problem here. Rather, I want to examine why it is not possible to
have a coreferential
expression
rather than a third person pronoun
in
reported speech or thought in the third person. In other words, why must
represented speech or thought be propositionally
transparent?

10. The propositional

transparency of represented speech or thought

Can one speak, as in the title of this section, of represented

speech or
thought as propositionally
transparent?
After all, the distinction
between
propositional
transparency
and propositional
opacity was fashioned for and
concerns oratio ohliqua clauses, while an utterance of represented
speech or
thought is not and does not contain an orutio ohliquu clause. Nonetheless,
it is
a variety of reported speech or thought and, though it can include syntactic
constructions
which are characteristic
of direct speech (as we said above
following Banfields description),
it is not, neither does it contain an oratio
recta clause. It is. in fact, a mixture of orutio recta or direct speech and orutio
ohliqua or indirect speech. There is thus nothing surprising
in the fact that it
shares with orutio ohliquu the property of being occasionally
propositionally
transparent.
There is. however, much more to it than that. I am claiming here
not that some cases of third person represented
speech or thought may be
propositionally
transparent,
but that all third person represented
speech or
thought is and must be propositionally
transparent.
This raises another
problem:
why should all third person represented
speech or thought be propositionally
transparent
when this is not the case for
first and second person represented
speech or thought?
However, it is not
only third person represented speech or thought, but all represented speech or
thought, which must be propositionally
transparent.
It just so happens that
the referential requirements
of first and second person represented speech or
thought, and the general requirement
of propositional
transparency
for all
represented
speech or thought coincide. So what we have to explain is why
propositional
transparency
is necessary in represented speech or thought even
in the cases where it does not coincide with referential necessity, that is, even
in third person represented speech or thought.
The reader may remember that the referential rules for reported speech or
thought follow directly from the computational
meaning
of the personal
pronouns.
He or she may have noted that, though I gave formulas
to

194

A. Rchoul

/) HON nrudr u,,, I I?

account for the computational

meaning of first and second person pronouns,
I seem to have been content
with Mimers claim that the third person
pronoun
is completely
devoid of virtual reference, i.e. of lexical meaning.
whether computational
or representational.
Though I will come back to the
problem of the meaning of the third person pronoun later, for the moment I
will say only that a third person pronoun imposes at least two requirements
on its referent: it must be an individual
different from either the speaker or
the addressee; it must be a female when the pronoun is feminine and a male
when it is masculine.
Before we tackle the particular problem of the propositional
transparency
of third person represented
speech or thought, let us return to the more
general problem of represented speech or thought. As noted above, represented speech or thought is a variety of reported speech or thought and as such.
in Sperber and Wilsons terms (cf. Sperber and Wilson 1986). an utterance ol
represented
speech or thought is used intrrp~tivel~~.
According
to Sperber
and Wilson. an utterance is a representation
with a propositional
form. and
as such can be used to represent a state of affairs which verifies its propositional form or to represent another representation
with a propositional
form
for example another utterance or a thought
in virtue of a resemblance
between their two propositional
forms. The first use they call &.suiptiw.
while the second is called interpretive.
So an utterance
of represented speech
or thought is used interpretively.
that is to represent another utterance
or
thought by virtue of a resemblance
between its own propositional
form and
the propositional
form of the other utterance or thought. What exactly is the
nature of this resemblance? According
to Sperber and Wilson, it is not a
relation
between representations
with propositional
forms .simp/icito
but
rather between representations
with propositional
forms interpreted
relative
to a common context. So we shall say that two representations
with propositional forms Rl and R2 resemble each other if the intersection
of the set Sl
of the implications
of Rl in the context C and the set S2 of the implications
of R2 in C is different from the null set. Note that this means that
resemblance
is a comparative
notion which ranges from the pole where the
intersection
is the null set and where there is no resemblance
to the pole
where Sl and S2 are strictly identical.
To come back to the more specific problem of represented
speech and
thought, what guarantee
do the referential
rules give that there will be a
degree of resemblance
between the original
speech or thought
and the
represented
speech or thought? Clearly there is only one thing which these
rules ensure: that the assignment
of reference in the interpretation
of the

original

speech or thought

relative

to a given context

and the assignment

of

reference in the interpretation

of the represented speech or thought relative to
the same context will have identical results, i.e. that the same individuals will be
picked out in each case. Though they do ensure propositional
transparency
in
the case of first and second person represented speech or thought, this is not
their goal and they do not ensure propositional
transparency
in third person
represented speech or thought. This raises a question: why is it important that
not only identity of referents but propositional
transparency
is ensured? What
does propositional
transparency
give us that identity of referents does not as
far as the resemblance
between the original speech or thought
and the
represented speech or thought is concerned?
It is tempting to think that part of the answer at least could be found in the
rules which Donnellan proposes for reporting definite descriptions. The reader
will remember that there are two different rules, one concerning the report of
an attributive use of a definite description, the other concerning the report of a
referential use of a definite description. The first imposes propositional
transparency (in the case of a definite description,
this can only be achieved through a
verhutim report), while the second is content
with mere identity of reference.
Yet the aim of the first rule concerning
the report of an attributive
use is not
to ensure propositional
transparency
but to ensure identity of reference. So,
though the two rules differ in content, the first ensuring propositional
transparency as well as identity of reference while the second ensures only identity of
reference, the overall aim is the same: ensuring identity of reference. It just so
happens that, as in the case of first and second person represented speech or
thought, ensuring identity of reference and ensuring propositional
transparency
are equivalent as far as attributive use of definite descriptions is concerned.
This is certainly
true of the rules concerning
the reporting
of definite
descriptions.
But is it true as far as the reporting of personal pronouns
is
concerned?
The referential rules (i) to (iii) above certainly make use of the
computational
meaning of personal pronouns.
But is the requirement
to use
the first person to speak of oneself and the second person to speak to and
about ones addressee a part of the computational
meaning
of first and
second person pronouns?
Certainly
not: using the first person pronoun
to
speak of oneself and the second person pronoun to speak to and about ones
addressee is a possibility which follows from the computational
meaning of
first and second person pronouns but it is not a requirement.
So why can we
not use coreferential
expressions
to speak about ourselves and our addressees? For example, in a situation in which I am addressing my son Alexander.
why can I not use (I 8b) as well as (18a)?

(18) Anne Reboul speaking to Alexander Moeschler :

(a) Youre late. I was getting worried.
(b) Alexander Moeschler is late. Anne Reboul was getting

worried.

To say that (18b) would be strange in such a situation is an understatement:

it actually gives the impression
that the speaker does not know that she is
Anne Reboul and that she does not know that the addressee is Alexander
Moeschler.
Indeed, it gives the impression
that she is speaking
of two
completely different individuals
who have nothing to do with herself or her
addressee. So, we always use the first person pronoun to speak of ourselves
and the second person pronoun to speak to and about our addressees (unless
of course we are mistaken about our own or our addressees identity) not
because of the existence of linguistic rules compelling us to do so but because
using coreferential
expressions
would mislead about our beliefs about ourselves and our addressees. It should be noted, in support of this hypothesis,
that it is more difficult to interpret an utterance where the speaker speaks of
himself by a coreferential
expression
such as his proper name than an
utterance where he refers to himself by the first person pronoun. This explains
why in direct discourse we must use first and second person pronouns
rather
than coreferential
expressions. It also explains why. in first and second person
represented speech or thought, we must still use these pronouns
rather than
coreferential
expressions: not, strictly speaking. to ensure identity of reference
but to ensure that the reported speech or thought does not lead to implications about the speakers beliefs about himself and his addressee which the
original speech or thought would not warrant.
Does this explain why the
third person pronoun must be employed in third person speech or thought to
refer to the speaker of the original
utterance
or subject of the original
thought, when he is different from the speaker and the addressee of the
represented speech or thought?
At first glance, it does not seem so, but closer examination
reveals that it
does. In fact, this pragmatic constraint
imposes propositional
transparency
on all represented (and even on all reported) speech or thought. As we saw
earlier. he/she can be used as a quasi-indicator
in reported speech or thought.
corresponding
to the indexical use of either he/she or I as indicators
in the
original discourse.
In other words, if we want to preserve propositional
transparency
in represented speech or thought, we must use lzr:.shc in represented speech or thought to refer to the speaker of the original discourse or
subject of the original thought when he or she is different from the speaker
and the addressee of the represented
speech or thought. So, we can explain

why

the third

person

pronoun

must

be used

in represented

speech

and

thought when the use of the first and second person pronouns
would not
ensure identity of reference: because, in such cases, the use of the third person
pronoun satisfies both the pragmatic constraint of propositional
transparency
and the semantic rule of identity of reference. This still leaves open two
questions:
why is he/she a quasi-indicator
and what happens when the third
person pronoun is used as an indicator for the first person pronoun?

11. The third person pronoun as a quasi-indicator

How can the third person pronoun be used as a quasi-indicator?
And what
must a referential expression be like in order to be used as a quasi-indicator?
This is rather easy to answer: it must preserve identity of reference and ensure
propositional
transparency.
To ensure propositional
transparency,
it must
allow a procedure
for reference assignment
which is equivalent
in some
respect to the original. However, this leads to another problem. In reported
speech or thought, the third person pronoun is used as a quasi-indicator
and
takes the place which, in the original.speech
or thought, was occupied by an
indicator,
that is, an indexical. The third person pronoun,
used as a quasiindicator in represented speech or thought, is not an indexical: its procedure
for reference assignment
usually involves anaphora,
which bears no relation
at all to any procedure for reference assignment
among indexicals. So, how
can the third person pronoun be used as a quasi-indicator?
First, it should be noted that this is not a problem specific to the third
person pronoun:
it is a problem for all quasi-indicators.
But let us try to solve
it for the third person pronoun. We saw before that in order to be used as a
quasi-indicator
a referential expression had to be used in such a way that
reference assignment is equivalent in some respect to reference assignment for
the related indicator.
As the problem raised by the third person pronoun
shows, reference assignment
for the quasi-indicator
cannot be equivalent
to
reference assignment for the indicator as far as semantic reference is concerned.
There is no way in which semantic reference for an indexical and semantic
reference for a non-indexical
can be equivalent, even if they pick out the same
object or individual.
So we are left with speaker reference.
This accords quite well with what Castaiieda says about quasi-indicators:
a
word is used as a quasi-indicator
when it is used in second person attribution
of (indexical) reference, that is in second person attribution
of first person
thinking (indexical) reference to someone different from the speaker or whom

the speaker believes to be different from himself. First person thinking

reference corresponds
to speaker reference. So what must be common
in
some way to the quasi-indicator
and to the indicator
is not the semantic
aspect of reference but the speaker aspect of reference. what the speaker has
in mind. Returning
to the third person pronoun as the quasi-indicator
of a
first person indicator.
what aspect of speaker reference is common
to the
third person quasi-indicator
and the first person indicator?
From what WC
said earlier, speaker reference with the first person pronoun is quite different
in kind from, for example, speaker reference with the second person pronoun.
not because of the semantic reference of the first person pronoun but because
of the peculiarity of self-knowledge.
because of the privileged access we have
to ourselves. A speaker who speaks about himself does not have to identify
himself to himself. So, what is common to speaker reference with third person
quasi-indicator
and first person indicator?
It is tempting to say that. with
third person quasi-indicator,
the speaker reference is not what the speaker of
the reported speech or thought has in mind but what the speaker of the
original utterance
or subject of the original thought had in mind. Thus.
speaker reference with a quasi-indicator
and the corresponding
indicator
would be identical.
However there are a few problems with this view: has the speaker of the
reported
speech or thought
nothing
in mind when he uses a referential
expression as a quasi-indicator?
Or is what he has in mind just what the
speaker of the original utterance or subject of the original thought had in
mind? The answer to both questions is simple: obviously. the speaker of the
reported speech or thought has something in his mind and, just as obviously.
what he has in mind is not what the speaker of the original utterance or
subject of the original thought had in mind. To see that this is so, it is enough
to look at our favourite case of a third person quasi-indicator
of a first person
indicator:
thou.gh the speaker of the original utterance
or subject of the
original thought has no need to identify himself to himself because he has
privileged access to himself, this is not the case for the speaker of the reported
speech or thought who certainly has no privileged access to anyone different
from himself. So he has to have something in mind which will identify the
referent of the quasi-indicator
for him and what he has in mind cannot be
what the speaker of the original utterance or subject of the original thought
had in mind. Thus speaker reference in represented speech and thought and
in original speech or thought cannot be simply identical. But what arc the
intentions
of the speaker of the reported speech or thought when he uses a
quasi-indicator?
Some of his intentions are purely referential and just have to

A. Rehoul ; Ho\**much

UM

199

I I?

do with the identification

(for himself) of the referent; some of his intentions
concern the communication
to his addressee of the speaker reference (whatever it may be) of the indicator,
that is of what the speaker of the original
utterance or subject of the original thought had in mind. Thus, though the
speaker reference of the quasi-indicator
is not identical with the speaker
reference of the indicator, the speaker reference of the indicator is involved in
the speaker reference of the quasi-indicator.

12. What, if anything, is the meaning of he/she?

As we saw above, according
to Milner, he/she is completely
devoid of
virtual reference, i.e. of lexical meaning, which Milner claims is why it can
only acquire an actual reference through
an anaphoric
relation
with a
referentially
autonomous
expression. But this cannot be entirely true. There
are occasions when he/she acquires an actual reference without any anaphoric
process, such as when it is used demonstratively.
It might be argued that in
such a case, he/she would be accompanied
by what Kaplan (cf. Kaplan 1977)
calls a demonstration,
that is a physical pointing of some sort. So it is not
through any kind of lexical meaning (computational
or representational)
that
he/she acquires an actual reference when used demonstratively
but through
the demonstration.
This, however, does not take into account an aspect of the
third person pronoun which does seem important
in reference assignment.
Thus, it seems that he/she, does have at least an embryo of lexical meaning
related to gender. I think it can safely be said that the lexical meaning of he/
she is of a computational
nature and could be represented by such a formula
as look for a mule individual/look for a female individuui. Is this all there is to
the meaning of he/she?
It has recently been argued by the French linguist Georges Kleiber (cf.
Kleiber 1990a,b) that the meaning
of he/she is not exhausted
by such a
formula. I will not go into his arguments
but will discuss briefly his conclusion as to what should be seen as the meaning
of he/she. According
to
Kleiber, the actual reference of a given occurrence of he/she must satisfy the
two following constraints
(which constitute its ~ presumably
computational
meaning) :
A. He/she must designate a referent which is thought
category, that is as bearing a name of some kind.
B. The referent of he/she must be salient.

of as belonging

to a

It should be noted that constraint

A indicates that he;she can only be used in
a referential way: the speaker must be able to identify its referent for himself
and speaker reference cannot be mere semantic
reference. This certainly
agrees (even if it is stronger) with the formula given above: to be able to
decide whether to use he or .she, the speaker must be able to identify the
referent at least to the extent of attributing
it a sex. What can we say ol
constraint
B?
Here. I want to return to relevance
theory and to advance within a
relevance-theoretic
framework a general hypothesis concerning
the meaning
of referential expressions and the accessibility of their referents:
H. : The poorer the meaning (representational
or computational)
of a referential expression, the more accessible or salient its referent must be.
Thus. referential expressions which designate very accessible or salient referents can also be weaker in lexical meaning. This hypothesis
has a consequence for Kleibers thesis: though the two constraints
he indicates
do
govern, to some extent at least, reference assignment
of lrrish~ they are not
part of the meaning of hejshe but are pragmatic constraints
arising from the
computational
meaning of he/she on the one hand and from a quite general
pragmatic constraint
on the other (ultimately
from the principle of rclevancc
which is the basis of H).

13. Conclusion: How much am I I and how much is she I?

I am certa.inly I. However, the extent to which this is true and the fact that
it is true, do not depend on the fact that I use the lexical item I to refer to
myself. Nor does it depend on my having the capacity to refer to myself in
this way. However, the fact that I use I to refer to myself does mean that it
designates myself as an ego or subjectivity.
On the other hand, .Y/x>is how
other people designate
myself. especially when they want to report my
thoughts or utterances in as faithful a way as possible. She. applied to me in
such a way, also represents my subjectivity.
and no other referential cxpression could do so. So I think that I am very much I and occasionally
.s/rr is
very much I.
Thus he/she is a subjective pronoun just as much if not quite in the same
way as I is. It can represent subjectivity just as well and as I is not the very
foundation
of subjectivity
but its mere representation.
there is no reason to

differentiate

he/she from Z on this peculiar

ground

however

much

they may

differ on other grounds.

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