Could Names always be Predicative?

Green Karen

There are good reasons for believing that, in some of their occurrences, proper names in English are best analyzed not as names, or singular terms (which indicate objects) but as incomplete expressions, or predicates.  Among these are occurrence of names in sentences asserting existence, as well as those in sentences such as ‘there were many Alexandras born in the 1990s’. But could it be the case that names are always predicative? Could names be eliminated in favor of predicates and the definite article? In this paper I discuss a number of different versions of nominalizing predicativism, which take occurrences of singular proper names “N” to be semantically equivalent to definite descriptions (possibly denuded), roughly of the form ‘the bearer of “N”. One descends from Russell’s theory of descriptions, another is based on syntax.  I argue that the view that names are always predicative, or can be eliminated in favor of nominalizing definite descriptions is incoherent. Only the view that ordinary proper names are capable of playing two different semantic roles is sustainable.