The General Consensus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The General Consensus - Essay Example Of importance to note is the fact that expressions such as Barrack Obama are known as proper names. Hornsby and Longworth, (2005), hold the view that proper names such as the aforementioned expression are generally regarded to be paradigmatic expressions of reference. Hence, this paper shall seek to answer the question as to why proper names are directly referential. By so doing, this paper shall delve into the mechanism of referencing. In a nutshell, this shall be approached from the standpoint of what do words of referring attach to individuals or objects. Furthermore, the paper shall seek to exhaust the relationship between meaning/sense and reference. Against this backdrop, some theories of proper names reference shall be used to provide a deeper insight into this topic. On the other hand, this paper shall also consider views which have been put forward by opponents in relation to reference. As it has been stated above, there is the general consensus that proper names are paradigmatic expressions of reference. This can be attributed to the fact that they tend to have a distinct attachment to things in the World. Perhaps one might wonder what really constitutes proper names in the first place. For the purposes of this research paper, proper names shall be used in the context of all that is commonly known as names. Expressions such as Barrack Obama, New York or Mount Kilimanjaro fall within the category of proper names. Yet still, one might wonder what is common among all the three expressions. In essence, do they form a genuine group of linguistic expressions? A closer look at all the three expressions reveals that they are indeed syntactic expressions which are simple. In this regard, they refer or part of them refers to specific individuals and objects. Hence, ‘Barrack Obama’ refers to a specific man; ‘New York’ refers to a given city while Mo unt Kilimanjaro refers to a specific mountain.