Abstract

This dissertation investigates the semantics of what I call characterizers--general terms describing how objects are, as opposed to what they are. Most adjectives, verbs, and prepositions are terms of this kind. Red is a paradigm. ;The prevailing semantical model for characterizers has been the classical view, on which there is a single content which red expresses in any context. Arguing against this account, I develop an alternative view which takes characterizers to be a certain kind of indexical. ;In light of a phenomenon that I call foexis , I develop a theory of application conditions according to which these entities take a parametric form involving a number of distinct kinds of components, each playing its own role within the whole conditions. The common component among the conditions for red is what I call the feature red . I develop the idea that when one uses this word predicatively, its content involves the ascription of the concept red to the object of predication. Variations in application conditions are thought of as variations in the manner in which the concept is supposed to apply: for objects of distinct sorts, the concept is thought of as applying in distinct manners. A content for red is thus a concept--the concept red--whose manner of application is given by a condition. I call such a combination of concept and condition a mode. ;I argue that there are two fundamentally different ways in which contents are determined for indexicals: sometimes the speaker's intention to express a certain content leads to its being expressed; sometimes contents are determined intention-independently. Certain recognized indexicals such as here, you, and he might be taken to show both kinds of determination. So construed, these words are indexicals of a certain special kind. I contend that characterizers are also of this kind, and elaborate on the deep parallels in how contents are determined for here and red