On the Grammatical Status of Names

This article focuses on the relatively neglected grammar of names, including their morphosyntax, which has not aroused the kind of interest and controversy associated with the (putative) semantics of names. It also focuses on a few Indo-European languages (French, Greek, and particularly English), but refers to a wider range of language types. While not an exhaustive account of the variations in name syntax and morphology, significant variation is nevertheless encountered and analyzed. The suggested universal aspects have some plausibility. I propose that names belong universally, with pronouns and determiners, to a category of determinative. The behavior of names as vocatives and in predications of nomination suggests that they are, unlike pronouns and determiners, inherently neither definite nor indefinite. Moreover, in such circumstances names do not function as regular arguments of the predicator; they do not bear a specified semantic relation to the predicator: they are either EXTRASENTENTIAL or appositive. In order to figure as arguments in other types of predication, and be assigned a specified semantic relation, names must acquire definiteness. Languages differ in whether definiteness is signaled overtly or not: in English, for instance, definite names are not distinguished in form from nondefinite, whereas in Greek definite use of a name is marked by an accompanying article. Other languages vary.