Abstract

The dissertation is about two issues at an intersection of metaphysics and semantics: the type-token distinction and the semantics of quotation. ;I develop an account of the metaphysics of signs in which word types play no role. Concrete particulars, such as ink marks, sounds, Braille dots, flag wavings in Semaphore, and so on, are of the same type by virtue of the function they have been assigned in what I call 'sign systems'. I argue that even if you start out ontologically open-minded, you won't find any abstract entities capable of doing the work traditionally required of word types. ;If there are no word types, then quotations cannot be construed as singular terms that denote word types. I offer such an account of quotation according to which quotation is a device for quantifying over tokens which stand in a certain functionally defined relationship--the same-sign-relation--to the token inside the quotation marks. ;In the final chapters I discuss some of the implications of my view. If I am right, then semantics and syntax are about word tokens and how they can be used; the widely held view that claims about the semantics and syntax of a language are claims directly about the psychological states of speakers of that language, is mistaken; the standard arguments for the conception of languages as abstract mathematical objects that have their properties necessarily, are undermined.