Marvin Thinschmidt
University of Potsdam
In this paper, I will discuss one of the most popular theories of quotation: the demonstrative theory. I will then defend this theory by formulating a rebuttal of one of the central arguments often brought forward against it.
According to the demonstrative theory of quotation, which is primarily associated with Davidson (1979), sentences like “‘All men are mortal’ is a true sentence.” should be understood as ‘All men are mortal. The expression of which this is a token is a true sentence.’ Quotation marks on this account work like demonstrative pronouns. The utterance within the quotation marks is not really part of the sentence but instead serves as a sample, illustrating what the quotation marks refer to.
Against this theory it is often pointed out that quotation is not context-sensitive while demonstrative pronouns are the context-sensitive way of reference par excellence. (Harth 2002, Cappelen et al. 2023) “‘Dinosaur’” for example refers to ‘dinosaur’ no matter in what context it is uttered. Conversely demonstrative expressions are always context-sensitive. Therefore, it seems that quotation marks cannot be understood as demonstrative expressions.
My claim is that this argument fails, because quotation is in fact context-sensitive.
There are two ways in which Quotation is context-sensitive. First, quotations can be used to refer to different kinds of things: types or tokens of linguistic expressions, certain physical shapes, and contents or functions of expressions. Which of those a quotation refers to depends on the context of its utterance. Second, if one embraces the demonstrative theory, the expression between the quotation marks is also a part of the context, which is crucial to determining the quotation’s reference.
I will close the paper with some remarks on why the context-sensitivity of quotation shows that the demonstrative theory can more accurately explain the pictorial quality of quotations than other theories can.
Chair: tba
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SOPhiA 2026 