Yet the description is being used
attributively to mean "the mayor, whoever s/he is, should be impeached".
(1) Variable individual concepts are associated with ordinary definite descriptions like the inventor of bifocals, when they are used
attributively; in this case the individual concept in question would be the one which picks out of each world whoever it is who invented bifocals in that world.
18 Does this mean that a speaker cannot be making an indeterminate description-theoretic statement when she uses an incomplete definite description
attributively? Not at all; for in such a case the speaker's propositional attitudes will be critically different from those in the referential case.
The same applies to "
attributively used nouns": they are not treated as converted adjectives "since any noun can be used in this way" (p.
would kidnap a high American official.(6) If we were to analyse (4) using Donnellan's distinction, only two analyses could be given: one on which the indefinite description "a high American official" is read
attributively, the other on which it is read referentially.
First, I have shown that the greater number of them are used
attributively. This is because they are first brought to English as part of loanwords which are highly "nouny".
was interpreted
attributively: "joint harmony" (or "gemeinsame Emtracht").
(27.) The adjective bezig met can be used
attributively only in fixed expressions such as een bezige bij 'a busy bee' and een bezige huisvrouw 'a busy housewife' (see Oostendorp in Brachin 1960: 170).
Notice that, interestingly, Spencer (2007: 221) defines the i element present in the genitival construction either as a morphologized clitic--or as a weakly adjoined affix--allowing a NP to be used
attributively. The fact that a significant structural parallelism exists between the genitival phrase and the adjectival phrase in Albanian, however, does not seem to be particularly striking if we consider that from a purely theoretical point of view they accomplish the same function.
Apparently, the distance between a noun and an adjective that is added when an adjective is used predicatively accounts for the tendency to use indirect connections only
attributively. As if the impulse sent from an adjective to its collocating noun would be lost in the case of predicative use.
But reflecting one sense of such a doubly ambiguous sentence, two-stage theory would seem to need a proposition both singular and general with respect to a definite description
attributively used.
But what if the adjective is used
attributively rather than as a predicate adjective following a copulative verb?
