Dictionaries and Proper Names* Salikoko S. M ufwcne, Universily o.f Georgia

Abstract

h is argued in this popcr that proper names are hnguutie signs. and, just like other denoting lc:<lCicaJ UOIIS. lhey are IISO c:arrtcn o( SOme (ormaJ linguistic; rtSlric:tions resardma, c.a... gender and number. They also have some idios)'ncrdsies regarding spelling and pronuneiauon. the kond or onrormauon. which like the prueding. is expeeted to be round in the doctoonary rather than an encyclopedia. Thus their inclusion in an unabridged doetionary is a must and should not be considered as a bonus.

Introduction

This paper addresses the questoon of whether o r not proper names deserve as much to be entered in the dict ionary us common nouns and other kinds of lexical units. The word dictionary is used here as a compendium of information about lexical units qua linguistic signs (ra ther than cognitive labels, see Mufwene 1984a, 1986, and below). The answer to the above question depends on that to another, viz., whether o r not proper names count as linguistic signs.

Our conception of meaning has, of course, a lot to do with how the second question is answered. A noo·mul procedure for doing this would be to detcm1ine first what linguistic meaning is, o task which may req uire a separate paper in itself. Rut a shortcut is adopted here in first assuming, in the most traditional way, that meaning is a concept or clus ter of definit ional features by which the denotata of a lexical unit can be identified. This view is then used to demonstrate, ad absurdum, that it rc.1ults in a logical contrad iction with the principle of conventionality of a linguistic system. It is thence abandoned for the rather impoverished alternative advocated in particular by Kripkc ( 1972) and McCawley (1975, 1978, 1983), according to which the linguistic meanings of common and proper nouns amount to what is reformulated in Mufwene (1983) as, respectively, ' kind of individua ls or substance called XYZ' and ' the individual or set of individuals called XYZ'. The concl usion of this ahernative conception of linguistic meaning is tha t proper names are also linguistic signs.

Based on the above, a review of some reasons traditionally adduced against the inclusion of proper names in the dictionary is then undertaken to show that this position is unjustified; proper names deserve to be included in the dictionary as much as do common nouns. The structure of this paper corresponds also to the two major parts of the argumentation sketched here:

lntemabonol joornAI of IA"""'!Jftphy, Vol. I No. 3 C 1988 Oxford University Press 095()..3848/88 $3.00

Dictionaries and Proper Names 269

t>al'l I is devo ted to determining (via a n invalidation of the meaning·qua­concept hypothesis) th:H proper names urc linguistic signs; part 2 demonstrates why they >hould be included ut least in unabridged dictionaries.

I. Are Proper ames lingui~tic S igns?

Dictionaries seem to have treated proper names in essentially three different ways:

I. omu them. ••~'Cpl for tho'IC that are also used as common nouns or parts thereof (e.g. Vem1s. Ve11u.1's comb). or define these common-noun uses and thereby possibly refer to the particular individuals o r circumstances which have led to such derivative uses. as in the Oxford English Dicti01rory (OED. compact editaon 1971 ). in Webstn's Third N,.,. 1m emotional Dictimrary of the English Lonf(uaJw Ut~ahridget/(1961), and in most French dictionaries·

2. include them us a bonus at the end of the dictionary and A) identify a~ brieOy as possible some famous individuals o r places they name (e.g .. 'Einstem. Albi'rr, German-born physicist, became Am. citizen (1940). receoved Nobel pritc ( 1921)', or 'Aristotlt ... Greek philosopher') as in Weh:<ters Nell' Twelltlttlt CelltUT)' DictiOIWrJ' (WNTCD 1979), o r B) specofy whcthco· they arc mule or female names and indicate their pronunci­lllions (e.g .. 'Am)' (f.) ['eimi)') as in Hornby's (1963) Ado·anced Letmrer·s Dil'tio11ary of Current £11glish:

3. include the most common ones (nutivc and non ·native) because they are ulso lexical units/ lingu istic signs, and provide, among other things, ~orne linguistic in formation about them (e.g., 'J ohn ' (jon). A masculine given 11ame ... '), us in The Amuiran 11t•rllllgc DictiiJJuory of the English Language (AHD 1969). 1

The Jlrst two positions seem to be supported by a widespread assumption both in linguistics nnd in the philosophy oflanguagc that common nouns have mean ing (albeit a cluster of defi nitional fcmurcs, roughly equated with tradi­tional d ictionary definitions). whereas proper names do not. n1 us, Rey-Dcbove ( 1971). for inswnce. goes us fur ns to cla im that proper names should , more properly. be the concern of encyclopedius. which provide non-linguistic infor­mation, ruther thttn of dictiona ries.

One of the arguments adduced in support of the common relegation of proper name> to encyclopedia~ is the fact that they are normally used in discourse as referential indices: to be sure. their referents vary from network to network of interlocutor.. (e.g .. family. friends, classmates, colleagues).2 Thatos. in the caS<: of some language> (p.uticularly those that do not have gender distincuons and a formal number agreement rule bet,><:en the subject and the verb). one of the mo>l U>Cful pic:ccs of linguistic information that can be provoded about a proper nnmc as JUSt 'proper name'. Thus. proper names should. or may. be omined from dictionaries.

270 Salikoko S. M urwcnc

Although Lyons (1975) und Palmer (1976) hnve, to my knowledge, nothing to do with the above lexicographic position, they have in fact adequately related to deictics the way proper names pick out their referents in the universe of discourse.) Since deictics arc thus adequately treated as linguistic signs, proper names should, by the same token, be considered in the same way. As discussed in part2, this very relation to dcictics should argue for their inclusion, like other words lhat are claimed to have only grammatical meanings, in lhe dictionary.

Underlying the lexicographic position for the omission of proper names from dictionaries are also the following rather tacit assumptions: the speaker's knowledge of proper names is not rcnlly pan of his/her knowledge of language, or proper names are nouns only in a specoal kind of way and function as such only peripherally (see. e.g .. Rey-Debove 1971: 69, where they are relegated to encyclopedias and grammars). If any correlation were to be established between these assumptions and current descriptions of grammars (considered here as bodies of generalizations about the formal behaviors of the leKical unitS of a language - see also Bolinger 1973). then the relation berween theory and practice would be quite inconsistent in both linguistics and the philosophy of language. Most of the examples that linguistS and philosophers have discussed during the last thirty years or so show proper names (rather than common nouns) occupying NP, or Argument. positions (particularly the subject posi­tion, in connection to which issues of their rcferentiality have generally been raised). However, a brief review of what a li nguistic sign is will show that no such inconsistency exists: linguists and philosophers must have assumed proper names to be a particular kind of linguist ic sign, just as common nouns a re. It is the lexicographers who have not followed suit.4

The formula inherited from Sa ussuo·e (1916) is that a linguistic sign consistS of the intimate associa tion (on the model of the two sides of a coin) o f a sound­image or 'signifier ' with a concept or 'signified'. To usc his own example, it is, in u otin, the associa tion of the sound-image «rbor with the concept of tree which makes a linguistic sign; neither the concept nor the sound-image alone can suffice as a linguistic sign. Some linguists and philosophers may, however, prefer the Ogden and Richao·ds 'semiotic triangle' ( 1923), accord ing to which a symbol is related to its referent in the universe of discourse only indirectly through the triluterol relation 'symbol - thoughtfreferen''C- referent' (see, e.g., Zgusta 1971: 33- 4, Landau 1984: 122). 5 Regardless of how relevant it is to invoke this alternative, we must face a problem which is inherent in both models and arises from the identification of linguistic meaning with ·concept' (Saussure), or 'thought' (Ogden and Richards), or, roughly, denotative descrip­tion as traditionally provided in the dictionary.

Minor idiolecllll variation set aside, it has been assumed since Saussure that the meaning of a common noun is the same for all speakers of the relevant language variery. This is part of the conventionality of language and, by lhe same token, of the linguisuc sign. Under the assumption that meaning equals the concept or description associated with the denotatum, this position

DicLion;ll'ies and Proper Names 271

presumably justifies why proper names should not be in the dictionary. As has been well debated in the philosophy of language, proper names may be associated with the same referent by different descriptions; unless they are assumed not to have meaning, the very principle of the conventionality of the linguistic sign would be shnnered.

However. a closer examination of dictionary definitions reveals that in a number of respectS the concept~ associated with at least some common nouns vary as much as those associated with proper names (see also Searle 1958. Geach 1962. and Kripkc 1972).6 There are a number of conceivable ways in which the nouns left and right, as well ns north, south. east. and west. can be defined. For instance. left can alternatively be defined as 'the side of the body lhat is (turned) to the north when one faces east' (out of lhe four possible geographical configurauons). or 'the side of the body in which the heart is mostly located' (and why not that in which the stomach is located?). or even 'the side of the body opposite that in whoch the liver is located'.

To assume that the meaning of a common noun corresponds to the denotational description associated with it would entail that different speakers and different dictionaries would have varying meanings associated with the above items. hence that these items are homophonous but with different linguistic signs for them. Such a situation would impede communication! The very fact that speakers do not have a ny comprehension problems following from this variability in denotational descriptions suggests that these are not meunings but helpful cognitive slrategies for identifying the deno~ata. Thus the linguistic value or these denotative descri pt ions is in principle not d ifferent from that of the descriptions associa ted with proper names. Consequently, if nouns such as these are considered linguistic signs, proper names should also be treated as linguislic signs and should dc~crvc a place in the dictionary.

It could be argued lhut beca use these classic examples are rather deictic, their denotative descriptions should normally vary in a way similar to those of proper 11amcs. 7 However. some non..deicLic nouns vary jn the same manner. For instance, compare the following definitions of comedy. (The emphases are added .) According to 0120, it is

a stage~play of n light ond tmw..ring character with tl happy conclusion to its ploL

that branch of the drnm'l which adopu; a humorous or familiar style and depicts laughable c·htlfllctttrs ~lnd i11cldems.

According to WNTCD. it is

originally. any play or ocher literary composition with a uontragic· ending

any or' ari<H.IS types or play or motion PICture \\>ith more or less JmmortHIS ueatmcnt or charact~rs and situatiOIIS, and a nonlriiXi~ ending.

According to AHD. it is

a play. motion picture. or Olher kind or work that is hrm•ormu in its treatment of tMm~ and rhMoct..- and has a ltoppJ' ending.

272 Sahkoko S. Mufwene

Regardless of changes in the phrasing and the selection of some words that may be considered near-synonyms (e.g .. WIIIISing and h11moro11.,). note that 'humorous treatment' does not apply to the same thongs in the above definitions: it applies to characters and incidents aocording to the compilers of OED. (~omcwhat differently) to ch<tracters and silllations according to those of WNTCD, but to theme and character according to those of AHD. Likewise. OED and AHD describe the ending as ' happy', wherens WNTCD describes it as 'nontragic'. Yet, there is little doubt that users of each of these dictionaries ca n all tell clear insta nces of comedy from those of non-comedy. and they have each a linguistic meaning of comcd)• which is quite simi lar to that of other speakers. As McCawley (who characterizes much of the information in dictionary definitions as encyclopedic. 1975. 1978. 1983) observes, any relevant and successful encyclopedic definition is as good as any other (1983). They provide not the necessary conditions for membership in the class or kind denoted by the word but a list of characteristics (many of which are accidents of history) which help distinguish one denotational kind{class from others.

Such variability in dictionnry definitions suggests that these descriptions are anything but the ti t~guistic meanings of these terms. Otherwise, there would be as many different meanings as there is room fo r variation in encyclopedic descriptions. By the same token the functional value of these descriptions is not any different from tbat of the descriptions associated with proper names. Thus, if variation in denotative descriptions is no obstacle to includong common nouns 1n the dictionary, it should not prevent the inclusion of proper names. either.

Such a conclusion can also be drawn from the following zoological defini· tions of num. (Except for the Latin terms. the emphases a re added.) According to A liD, it is

a member of the genus Homo, fomily lhmli11idae. order Pr;nUIU!S, class Afamma/i(l, chttractcrized by erect posture and an opposable thumb; c.pccially a member of the only ex1ant species~ Honw sllpieltS, dis:1inguishcd by the abi1ily to communicate by means of organi7..ed spHch and to record mformation in a ''ariety of symbolic sy)ttms.

According to Webster's 171ird. it is

n bipt?lftll P'imate IIJanll'lt<ll (1/onro SClpkns) that is anatomically relnttd to great apes but is d•Min&uished by notable tl~l·tlopment of the brain with a resulcant capadty to articulate :spee<·h and abstract reasoning. marked erecrneJ..f or body carriage ,-.,·ilh COI'rcsponding alteration of museu/or balance and loss qf prthen.ti~·e pOII'ets of tlre/tX>t and slwrlefling of the arm wilh accompanying im:rease in thumb size and npposabl/ity lhal is usufnllyJ conside1·ed to occur in a vAriable number of freely interbrtttulhlg races. and lhat is Lhc ~ole recent representative of Chc nalural family Hominidae.

Not only do these definitions vary in size. they also differ in their selection of definitional features; in relation to these the definitions only overlap. Since misunderstandings regarding the denotation of m011 are mosl unlikely between AHD and Webster's Third users. Kripke's and McCawley's position that

Dic1 ionorics and Proper Names 273

descriptions such a~ the above arc essentially cognitive strategies that help speakers identify the denotations of nouns is plausible. Equally plausible is their conception or the relevant linguistic meaning. which amounts to a rather impoverished formula, compared to the traditional conception of meaning as denotative description. According to McCawley ( 1975. 1978, 1983), given a noun XYZ (where the phonetic string XYZ corresponds to Saussure's sound· image), its linguistic meaning is ' member or the species XYZ' . Kripke's formula, which I prefer for reasons given in Mufwcnc (1 9~3)," corresponds to 'kind called XYZ'.

Kripke also a rgues tha t the meaning of proper names amounts to the formula 'the individual called XYZ',9 where again XYZ corresponds t.o the sound-image or name of the relevant individual(s). This position thus reduces the semantic difference between proper names and common nouns, which, as argued in Mufwenc (1983). now amounts essentially to the fact that in their unmarked uses proper names denote definite individuals or sets of individuals. whereas common nouns are simply unspecified with regard to definiteness and they need delimiters to specify the manner in which they are being used.10 So, if the linguistic meanings of common and proper nouns a mount to no more than tbe above formulae, then they are linguistic signs or virtually the same nature differing essentially in the fact that in their unmarked uses proper names are assumed to have definite denotations. As linguistic signs, proper names should thus be entered at least in unabridged dictionaries. This is apparently the position taken by the compilers of AHD, where the personal proper names eotered are generally defined quite adequately as 'masculine or feminine given name'.

As in Mufwene ( 1984a), it is worth emphasizing that Kripke's and McCawl· ey's conception of the l i ngui~tic meanings of nouns docs not entail that dictionaries should be purged of their encyclopedic information. Although dictionaries need not compete with encyclopedias regmding the amount of information they include, some encyclopedic in fonnation is indeed helpful in order for the dictionary user to figure out what the kind named XYZ is in the universe of reference or of knowledge. In fact, as proposed by McCawley (1975). t.be tinguistic meaning can be left implicit through well-worded encyclo­pedic definition.~. 11

The need for the above lexicographic position on denotative definitions is justified by the dual status of words both as cognitive labels (the sense in which Saussure seems to have conceived his ' linguistic sign') and as ca rriers of linguistic informa tion, in the form of positive and nega tive. formal <llld prugmatic constraints on the usage o f the words (see Mufwcnc 1979, 1986). Many works in formal linguistics from Chomsky ( 1965) to date have been concerned with their second status as carrien; of linguistic information. Correct!)', Chomsky ( 1965) is in part concerned with how significant gcnerali<a· lions could be captured based on the complexes of features that make up lexical items. Botinger ( 1973) goes as far as to explicitly reverse the established

274 Salikoko S. M ufwcne

hiera rchy between grammar a nd the lexicon. making words the central component o f linguistic knowledge a nd presenting grammar, quite adequately, as a body of generali1ations about the behaYiors of lexical items in utterances. Likewise, many generative semanticists endeavored to capture some generaliza­tions through the identification of ••man tic classes. A similar auempt can also be witnessed in the works of some Montague grammarians (e.g .. Dowry 1978) and even implicitly in the current government and binding literature. All these formal linguists have been interested in particular constraintS. be they posith·e or negative. on the grammatiCal behav1ors of words as linguistic signs.

This particular conception of words as carriers of linguistic information makes a case for the inclusion of proper names in the dictionary. Like common nouns. not only do they occur m the NP. or Argument. positions in sentences. but they are also often constrained regarding. for instance. number and gender. Thus. Joan is normally a feminine name. while John is normally a masculine name; th<' Bahamas and '''" R<'tl So.< arc plural whereas thl' Unitl'tl Stott'S (of America) is singular. The case of tlut Unitt'd Stott'S is similar to that of the common noun ml'asles, which is singular in spite of its plural form and must. for some native speakers. be used "ith the definite a rticle. Below. more reasons are given for normally including proper names in dictionaries.

2. Why Proper Names S hould Be ln the Dictionary

If proper names a re a lso linguistic signs. why have they generally been omilled from dictionaries? Why has the inclusion of some of them been presented as a bonus? In addition to those discu,sed in part I, a reason which has commonly been invoked to j ustify the omission of proper names and which is adequately criticized by Haiman ( 1980: 350) is the following: o ne may well know how co speak a la nguage without knowing the famous individuals and places bearing the particular names entered in encyclopedias.

To be su re, this is not the sense in which the place o f proper names in the dictionary is discussed here. We are rather interested in linguistic information about their usage in language. e.g., how they a re pronounced and spelled, what their gender and grammatical number arc, and what other formal and pragmatic constraintS govern their usage (Mufwene 1984a). The fact that the graphic sequence "'' is pronounced [s] in the names Chicago and Michigan (rather than the more common pronunciation [c) in chair. chill. a nd choose, or the pronunciation [k) in rlwrarter and p.•ychic) is just such a linguistic constraint, albeit phonetic. and the dictionary is certainly the place to look for it. The fact that the names Bro11x (as opposed to the possible misspelling Bronks) and Nethl'rlantls must be used with the definite article, whereas .Wanhauan and llolland cannot be. if used without a modifying phrase. is an equaUy relevant linguistic constraint which should be provided in a dictionary conceived as a compendium of information about lexical units qua linguistic signs.

Diclionarics and Proper Narnes 275

In la nguages such as French, where gender is morphosyntactically signifi­cant, a fact such as the following should undoubtedly be recorded in the dictionary: Brig/lie is typically a fetninine name, Julien is a masculine name, and Dominique is unconstrained for gender. The need to include proper names along with such grammatical information in a French dictionary is emphasized by coun try and ci ty names, in which case the possibility of considering the sex of the referent in order to determine the gender of the name is excluded. B)• convention I<' Caire ·Cairo' is masculine; Ia Harane 'Havana', feminine; I<' Portuga/'Portugal', masculine: and Ia France 'France', feminine.

All the above constraints are as relevant to speaking good English, or French, as arc the constraints on the foUowing common nouns: in unmarked contextS, injluen:a is (assuming Mufwene's 1984b analysis) NON-INDTVTDU­ATED and is used without an article, whereas flu is DEFfNITE I DMDU­A TED, delimited with the definite article the, and cold is INDEFJNITE INDIVIDUATED. delimited with the indefinite article a. Thus a patient bas inftuen2.11, the nu. or a cold; other delimitations of the terms should be justified by the marked context.

Note, to begin with, that a speaker needs, among other things, to be able to distinguish proper names from common nouns! In a language such as English, where the morphosyntactic delimitation of most proper names is similar to that of common mass nouns. it is relevant to determine whether a noun is proper or common. For instance, both proper names and mass nouns are prototypically used without an article, and when they combine with the indefinite article, they are both assigned a marked interpretation (e.g., a Larry may mean a person named 'Larry·, und a wi11e, normally modified by a nother word or phrase, means 'a kind of wine'). Not only will determining whether a noun is proper or common (mass) help the user of the language interpret a Larry adequately, it w1ll a lso make it pos.~ib lc for himfher to predict whether combining the noun with, e.g., a definite article should call for a mal'ked interp retation; this is the case for proper 11amcs but not for mass nouns.

Another reason for the omission of proper names from dictionaries appears to be the fact that. aside from the names of major geographic locations (e.g., New York, Bel~:ium) or of major historical and political figures (e.g., Aristotle, Napoleon, John Kennedy), the denotations of 1>roper names vary from network to network of interlocutors. ll owever. finding an impediment in tllis amounts to confusing the role of the dictionary to that of census registers. If we could just think of the many sit uations where we have processed and understood utterances without ha\i ng the least idea what the referentS of both the common nouns and proper names used in them were. we would realize how linguistic-.llly lfrelevant the actual identification of the referents of proper names is to their linguistic meanings or to their capacity for reference. 12 T n fact, it is opportune here to invoke again the case of non-anaphoric personal pronouns, whose referents vary even from speech event to ~pecch event. We often process utterances involving such pronouns without having the least idea of what their

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276 Salikoko S. M ufwcnc

refere111s are. Although it is accurate under all such circumstances to say that we do no1 know whal or who the speaker is lalking about, it would be inaccuralc 10 claim that we did no1 unders1and the uuerances. or that we did nol know 1heir meanings. So, variability of reference for proper names is a poor excuse for omining lhcm from dic1ionaries. In fac1. 11 confuses the notion of 'reference' (as the discourse-established relation between a linguistic sign and its referent in 1he universe of discourse) wi1h the notion of ·meaning' (which, if equated with concept, makes reference possible).'> The omission of proper names would logically entail. contrary to 1raditional lexicographic practice, I hal of deiclic lexical units (both pronominal a nd adverbial).

On I he other hand, both the philosophical and linguistic lilerature has been rcstricled IO 11 onc-litccled conceplion of I he function of proper names: Kripke's ' rigid designution·. that capacity to pick out the same rcfcrcnl(s) in all possible worlds (once reference has been eslablished). And. of course, lhe referen1s of common nouns pula tively vary from discourse 10 discourse. being established anew each lime lhrough lhe morphosyntaclic processes o f delimi talion (see Mufwene 1981. 1984b). However, as noled in Mufwene ( 1983), there are too many exceptions to the rule for !his observation 10 be considered accurate. Scien1ific views of the universe excluded, nouns such as Slm and moon also designale rigidly (unless an argument is made 1ha1 1hey should be considered among I hose proper names that require a defini1e article in English). 14 The same is also 1rue oflerms such as rhe ki11g, rhe q11ee11, rhe house. and rhe cotmcil. which are regular common nouns but function more or less hke proper names (and. likewise. are oflen spelled wilh a capilal lcuer) in some well-defined contexts.

More generally. rigid designation is a properly of cxpressio11s with definile reference a nd not of proper names a lone. In all the above cases. lhis properly depend s in fact on some variables such as interlocutot-s and discourse. Thus, John used by " pa rticula r speaker in a speech event is no more of a rigid designalor than rhe waiter is when used in similar condilions. The rigjdity of designation/reference for both phrases is determined by lbeir users and lhe particular conlcxts in which they are used. John or rhe wtJiter used by different speakers (in differenl comexls) may pick out diiTere!ll referents. On 1be other hand. 1he same speaker could use them in one con1ex1 10 refer 'rigidly'. e.g., lo John McGuire (whom I met lhree years ago) and in anolher 10 refer. e.g., to John Smilh ("hose ex-wife is a friend of my sis1er).

Since rigid designation is a dependem properly, which applies equally to proper name~ and definite common nouns, il cannol be used a.s a jus1ifica1ion for omiuing proper names from diclionaries. Likewise. since. as we have seen, the denolative descriplions associated wilh common nouns correspond to linguislic meaning no more than do those associated with proper names, a ny decision 10 exclude the latter from I he dictionary on the pula live basis of rigid desigmuion is ru ther unjuslified.

T he omission of proper names from dicliona ries could a lso conceivably be

Dictiom\rics and Proper Name!\ 277

j ustified by their transferrability from language to language. e.g .. Salik"k" remains lhe same. regardless of whelhcr il is used in English. French, Chinese. Lingala. or Kikongo-Kiluba discou.-.c. The quc•tion is 1hus whether it 100 should be included in an English diCJionary simply because !here are Americans who use il in their uuerances. Can any proper name be cnlered in lhe dic1ionary of any language? To be sure, 1he fac1 1ha1 Saltkoko is nol an Anglo-Saxon name. IS not common in the English-speaking world. and could (ideally) be found in a(n unabridged) Kikongo-Kiluba diclionary should justify omiuing il from an English dic1ionary. Af1cr all. a diclionary cannot be a register of all the names used a round the world, and i1 is sound to conceive of various dic1ionaries as being complememury. Ncvcnhcless. insofar as dictionaries arc conceived of a.s compendia of linguistically relevant information about the linguistic signs/lexical units used inn language community, it is hard 10 expla in why names as common as Gail and Janet have generally been omitlcd.

Lu ndau (1 984: 167-70) seems to argue for a scleclive inclusion of proper names: basically only those thai have common-noun uses whose meanings qua concepls are rather 'generic' (having developed some degree of autonomy from 1heir proper-name uses). Thus. Disn~ylmtd used as 'fantasy land' ralher lhan as lhe amusement park in Anaheim. Cahfornia should allegedly be included. whereas il may be premature 10 include lflatugare in ils. so far. figurative sense as 'a symbol of governmental dirty work·. Such a figuralive inlerpretation, as he correclly obser•'ed. is based on encyclopedic knowledge. Including such a dcfinilion as if it were the literal meaning qua concepl of Waterga1e would call for a parallel inclusion of. e.g., lhe name Vielntml in ils figurative sense of 'symbol of undeclared, unpopular war·. a usage which is allegedly overlooked by the same diclionary which has cnlcrcd the figurative usage of Warergate.

Landau's posilion that proper names in their lileral uses qua referential indices for (sciS o f) individuals or for place~ should be omilled from dicl io­narics follows undoub1edly from one o f the assumplions rejec1ed above, viz .. tha i common nouns, but nol propet· names. have meanings. However. his posi tion lhu t figurative uses which arc not yet frozen be excluded rrom dictionaries is quite correct, particularly since they are no1 different in kind from nonce figuralive uses of common nouns. In bolh cases figumtive usage is a cognilivc pro<.-css and discourse phenomenon, which, as Landau correctly observes. draws extensively on wha1 i~ kno,vn aboul the denOiatum. That knowledge. as much as its figura1i.-e ex1ension. is likely 10 ''"ry from speaker 10 speaker (depending on lbe delails of lhe denouuive and connotalive descrip­lion~ lhey associate with the i1ems): hence we speak of relative succes.~ or failure of such uses depending on how they are unders10od. Unless a figurative use has been idiomatized. it seems correcl 10 trcal it u~ purl of the creative behavior of individual speakers, i.e., beyond 1he basic information provided by the dic1ionary to help the user ligure out I he denoUttion of a linguislic sign. Hence figurative use should concern the discourse analyst more than lhc lexicographer.

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278 Salikoko S. M ufwene

As for adjectives derived from proper names whose meanings qua concepts have become more or less independent from their etyma, such as Freudian and Ktifkaesque, the)' need not be defined in relation to the individuals who bore the names they are built on (except of course for etymological purposes). The kind of independent denotative description suggested by Landau is certainly in order for them. But this does not entail that more recent derivations such as Chom.,kyan, which cannot be explained without reference to the bearer of the base name, must be omitted. They are actually not different in namre from those derived from common nouns denoting kinds of individuals or substances that we are less, or not at all, familiar with. For a user who does not know about Avram Noam Chomsky, the reference in the entry should be a helpful starting point beyond which he/she may want to check in an encyclopedia (or some reference book on contemporary lingusitics) for more information to help himjher better understand the range of characteristics denoted by Chomskymr. This situation is not any different from one in which, e.g., a non-creolist may not understand tbe adjective substratophobic. Reference to the words substra­tum and phobia alone may not be enough; be/she may have to find out more about theories of creole genesis in order to adequately understand what the adjective denotes.

Among o ther advantages for entering all adjectives derived from proper names in the dictionary, there is the question of how such adjectives are formed, sinoe in English (as in many other languages) there is a lot of intra-systemic variation in this domain of word formation. For instance, the name Napoleon has given Napoleonic; Freud, Freudian; and Kafka, Kafkaesque; each of these adjectives is derived through the addition of a d ifferent suffix. The principle behind this variation is not clear, o r· at least it is less regular than that requiring the use of a definite article before the name of a river, e.g., the Missouri, the Mississipi. While the latter kind of linguistic behavior is regular and informa­tion on it must be relegated to the grammar, it should be helpful for a dictionary to provide, for the communicative needs of its users, informa tion on all relevant linguistic idiosyncrasies of all the lexical items of the language it describes. In the case of adjectives derived from proper names, it can provide the information in the same way as for adjectives such as 110is-y, scholm·-ly, minim-al, bibl-ical, curricul-ar, symbol-ic, and problem-atic, which a re derived from common nouns. Th.is is pro bably one of the few cases where some foreign names may indirectly find their way into dictionaries of, e.g., English or French, but this should alarm nobody, sinoe the intntsion is linguistically jnstificd in this case.

In some cases, two or more adjectives have been derived from the name of the same individual, e.g., Chomskyan vs. Clromskyite. The dictionary is then the place to find out whether there is a semantic difference between the d ifferent derivatives, and if so, what the difference is. After all, since these are adjectives now rather than proper names ( regardless of the spelling convention with a capital letter), it is up to !he dictionary as the repository of the disjunctive

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D ictionaries and PI'Ope:l' Name~ 279

lexical competences of native speakers to let the uninfonned know what the terms dc.notc a nd when they can be used felicitously.

3. Conclusions

Proper names a nd their derivative adjectives are linguistic signs; they are thus constra ined in the same way as common nouns and the adjectives derived from them are. Their us!lge presupposes the same kind of linguistic knowledge that is required to be able to use common nouns, regarding, e.g .. pron uncia tion. spelling, grammatical number, gender. and delimitative possibilities. The main difference is that proper names denote definite (sets of) individuals a nd common nouns denote classes/kinds of individuals or substances. Otherwise. they are both linguislic signs of basically the same kind (see Mufwene 1983). even up to the functional value of the denota tive descriptions associated with them. Proper names thus deserve to be entered as a matter of course in dictionaries as much as do common nouns. The only logica l proviso m<'Y be that, since proper names fnnction prototypically as referential indices, denota­tive descriptions beyond, e.g., ·personal name' or 'name of a city in GL' (where GL sta nds for geographic location) should be omitted, nnless an unnecessary privilege is given to the famous bearers of some names. This paper may then end with the suggestion that dictiona ry editors reconsider their positions about proper names.

Notes

*I am grateful to .Bill Frawley and Raoul Smith for inviting me to write Lhis paper. to my Hnonymous referee for helpful comments on its earlier ve1·sion. and to Ellen Johnson for editing this text. I am solely tesponsjble for aJJ lhe remaining shortcomings.

1 Even Lhough it could be for other reasons, the bilingual Harrap'.-. Mmlem College Fren<:h und English Di<·tionary (1967) can perhaps be dassed in 1he same calegory as AHD, since it enters particularly those commonly used proper nHmes for persons and geographical locations whose French and English forms differ. indicating their pronun­ciatioos in both languages. Unlike AHD. it doe.o;; not distinguish between I he oames of t1mous people or pla(..'eS and those of others, a decision which is consistent with th~; word and phrase cross-matchings which are characteristic of all its bilingual entries. The other dictionaries ci1ed in the-text are not always consistent. or they seem to follow alternative principles. For instan(..'C the main body of WNTCD includes a lot of cJassic names such as AtheTwand Nlinena. for which no COOlll'IOn-noun t1ses are given: yet it lists Picasso in the supplement, even though the Iauer has a common-noun usage similar to that or Venus.

2 'N~.!twork of interlocutors· is used he.re for speakers that iOleracl regularly with one another and use (among other things) the same proper names in v~uious contexts with reference to the same people and places. As discussed in Murwcnc (1983). if two Ol' more people bear the same name in such networks. special strategies are normally developt:d to disambiguate reference, e.g., by modifying the name with an adjeclive as in Liule/B(~

280 Salikoko S. Mufwene

John. or by nicknaming one, some, or all the bearers of the name. Tbcsc strntcJ!ics arc in essence not different from those by which the referent.' of common nouns arc differentiated from one another. e.g .. the big guy vs. sht lilt It' guy in the same universe of discourse. So. the problem of referential ambiguity of prO()er rlames is irrelevant to tJte issue of whelher or not proper names should be entered in dictionaries. For that matter, personal pronouns arc not only deictic (acting also as referential indices in di!>COutse) but ofien also referentially ambiguous; )CC they are normally assigned entries in dictionaries. More on this below in part 2.

1 This relation is only implicit in Palmer, who. incidentally, argues correctly for the inclusion of the non-linguistic context in considerations of deictics.

4 This comment applies to those who assume thBt only common nouns have

meanings but not to those who hold that both proper and common nouns have meaning (qua cluster of definitional features). nor to those (like Kripkc and McCawley) who assume that both kinds of nouns ha\'0 rather impo,'Cruhed linguistic meanings reducible to the formulae presented in the introduction and below.

s It is not clear that there is as much difference between the two models ns is suggested by some. \Vhile Saussure deals with denotative meAning qua concept and the fusion or tJ1is with a sound-image to form a linauistic sign (regardless of the universe or l'cferenoe). Ogden and Richards appear to be concerned with the relation of the ·symbol' (i.e., sound-image) to tbe universe of reference itself. This concern presupposes tbe very model proposed by Saussure, whtch could be panoally tdentified with the 'symbol­thought' ponion oftheir'scmiotic trian&le'. There arc two problems ~~o;th the Ogden and Richards model, one of which lies in the fac t that their 'symbol' applies us much to words as it does to longer units (including sentences). This incorrectly reduces the meaning of a sentence to tbc same level as thal of a word. In addition, their failure to distinguish the denoting relation between a sound-image and a conoept from the referential rela1ion between a W'Ord qua linguistic sian and its referco1 ob)CUres the problems of the meaning of ·meanong' that they set out to highlight. In the rest of this paper only the Saussurean position is nssumed.

6 Apparently. the reason the descriptions of many, if not most. common nouns do not vary signific:antly lies in the perceptual limitations or the ways the denotuta may be conceptualized. For instance. there are not many aJtemative ways to perceive a neck in the human or animal body. Thus, C\'On though the actual words that describe it denotati\'ely val') a httle bit, different dictionaries and speakers will c:apturo the fact that it is the part of the bod) connecting the head to the •houldcrs. The main problem with personal and place names lies in the fnct that their referents have been identified in various co nteXt!\ (even in the same network of communic:a tion): consequently, different characterist.jcs associated with tlte.~ different contexts arc used to identify the referents. As is pointed out bc1ow. convemence must be taken into consideration in discussing the value of the dtseriptions associated wltb both proper names and common nouns.

- This is eontral') to McCa\\ley'• (1975) claim that these "'ords ·arc a long "-a)' removed from the realm of proper nouns·. Regarding the descriptions usscx:iated wilh them for identification purposes, they ore quite close IX'rticularly to those proper names we know fron'l day~urday interactions with o thers in our own networks. Tn McCawley's credit. however. they do vary quite oflcn in their referential ' 'alues. pa niculorly within the same net"'ork of in,erlocutOM;, s:mce the physical location of interlocutors is panirularly rele\'ant for the cardinal pomts.

' The reason lS essentially ddimitPh\"C and bas little. 1f an) thing_. to do wttb the fact

Ok;tionartcs 11nd Proper Names 281

that Kripkc uses 'kind' and McCawley uses 'spct'ics'. (McCa" ley's term must he rc~arictcd only to a nimnls. smce the term i;; found in his dctinition of the mean ing of hor.tt!.) I assume that common nouns al'e assigned to deno ta Livc classes rat her than to lhe individual membe-rs of the classes. h is the delimiters (al'ticles. possessives, quantifiers. demonstratives) or the absence thereof (in the case or some languages) which specify whetber tbc classes linds must be interpreted panicularly as NON-fNDIVIDUATED or TNDIVIDUATED (in which case funher specification, viL, SINGULAR or PLU­RAL, GENER IC or NON-GENERIC - in the case of English, DEFfNITE or INDEFINITE is required). See also Mufwcnc ( 1981, J984b).

• In M ufwene (1983) I his formula is also extended to 'set of individuals'. such ~s 1he Yanktt.! or lite Red So.r.

10 Mufwene(l983)actWllly indicates a son o fcontinuume<tcndmg from proper names for ondtvtduals to common nouns for classes of objects. It is therein argued that proper names and common noun• shan: moro features than bas been tradnionally ackno~>1cd&ed.

11 Thjs JS not to suggest lhat the encyclopedia}dictionnry dislinction should be obliterated (cf. Haimun 1980). It is assumed here, as in Mufwene ( l984a), tha t the disli nction is a hclprul one. even though lhe J'Cusons for this poshion a re not neoessnrily the same as those most commonly gjvcn in the litet"dturc (cf., e.g .. Rey-Debove 1971. Kat7 1977. Rey 1979. Frawley 1981. and Londau 1984). In order not to repeat here the long argumentation tn Mufwene (1984a). it sbould •ufficc to paraphrase: the distinction, starting with the follo ... in& quo(ation from Tltt N~w £1U:)'clopaedia Br~tan­nica (I 5th edition, 1984): 'a dictionary explains words. whereas nn encyclopedia explains things'. That is~ aside from the linguistic.'\lly releva nt inform!Hion thal it musl provide aboUl the usage of words in sentences (i.e., fonnal, positive and negative constrniuts along with Chomsky'• 1965 treatment of lexical iwms as complexes of features), a dictionary helps iu user diStinguish the denotation of a pantculur t.erm from those of other terms (anotbcT 8Sj)Cet of lexical competence). It docs this in proVIding any suotable encyclopedic description sc:kctcd from a vnrocty of alternative•. On the other hand. an encyclopedia assume!fl thnt its user already knows what the denotation of the te1·m is; thus it simply provides more encyclopedic information aboul 1hc denota tion iLSelf. ·r his builds up his/her knowledge of the world (real or fictional) but not of language.

" One such case is that of the pagjna messages commonly heard from the loudspeakers of hospital• (e.g.. when doctors arc summoned to the nearest telephone) or of airports (e.g .. when travelers or their ho~ts arc asked to mc:ct tbctr parties at spec~ fie locations). Most times very few of tbe hearers know the referents of the proper nnmes used in lhe message~. but virtuaJiy all thO)C thal be.at the me~"ages and know the language understand 1 hern. The same is also true of messages where de6nite de~criptions are used instead of proper names. e .. g .• ·W•IILhe driver o f the white Tercel, licence plrlle CYT 849 GA, mo\'e hi• car from the loadong rone'!'

u For the altemam·e position which rcduCJc> meaning to a formula of the type 'kind. set. or individual called xvz·. note that what relates a noun or nume to its denotation is not so much t he description often used to identify the kind, the set. or the individual bearing the label. It is, instead. as Kripkc puts il. the sort of bnptb:rnal associa tion which has been established between a noun and its dcnotaLion. or a pi'OJ>CI' name a nd its hearer. The denotative descripcion is contingenl on this association ttnd. particularly. on Lhe context m which it was established.

•• Incidentally, as obscn'Cd by my roferee, names of the moons of other planets arc proper names,

282 Salikoko S. M ufwcnc

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