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Summary Descriptions commonly appear in the predicate place, as in "x is an F" or "x is the G."  Neither the Russellian analysis, the Frege/Strawson analysis, nor the Donnellean analyis of descriptions easily accommodates such uses of descriptions, however.  The problem is that descriptions in the predicate place seem to specify properties, not quantifiers or objects.  This raises two questions: first, how ought we to account for predicate-place descriptions?  And, second, is unified analysis of subject- and predicate-place descriptions is possible.  Attempts to offer such analyses have tended to treat descriptions as denoting properties rather than quantifiers.
Key works Kamp 1981 and Heim 1982 are largely responsible for introducing the predicative analysis of descriptions into formal semantics (for descriptions in the predicate place, specifically).  In the philosophical literature, Geach 1962 and Wiggins 1965 were early observers of the problems generated by predicate place descriptions.  More recently, Graff Fara 2001 has proposed a unified analysis of descriptions according to which all descriptions are treated as predicates.
Introductions Ludlow 2008
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  1. Further Steps towards a Theory of Descriptions as Predicates.Delia Graff Fara - 2016 - Analytic Philosophy 57 (2):91-109.
    Descriptions are predicates. Here, I'll take this to mean either of two basically equivalent things: that they have extensions as their semantic values, sets of entities, in the broadest sense; or that they have type-〈e,t〉 functions as their semantic values, functions from entities, in the broadest sense, to truth values. An entity in the broadest sense is anything that can be the subject of a first-order predication. Examples are individuals, pluralities, masses, and kinds. Here I'm including entities in this broadest (...)
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  2. Response.John Hawthorne & David Manley - 2014 - Mind and Language 29 (4):499-510.
    We are very grateful to our critics for their kind words and thoughtful engagementwith The Reference Book (hereafter TRB), and also to the editors of Mind & Language for the opportunity to respond. We’ll start our reply by sketching the book’s positive thesis about specific noun phrases and names. In §2 we’ll relate the traditional semantic category we call ‘reference’ to semantic taxonomies given in terms of mechanisms of denotation. In §3, we’ll turn to acquaintance constraints on reference and singular (...)
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  3. Meta-linguistic Descriptivism and the Opacity of Quotation.Michael Oliva Córdoba - 2014 - Acta Analytica 29 (4):413-426.
    The paper unfolds a non-modal problem for (moderate) meta-linguistic descriptivism, the thesis that the meaning of a proper name (e.g. ‘Aristotle’) is given by a meta-linguistic description of a certain type (e.g. ‘the bearer of “Aristotle”’). According to this theory, if ⌜α⌝ is a proper name, it is a sufficient condition for the name’s being significant that the description ⌜the bearer of ⌜α⌝⌝ is significant. However, a quotational expression may be significant even when the expression quoted is not. Therefore, proper (...)
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  4. LOGISCHE UND SEMANTISCHE FUNKTION DER PRÄPOSITIONEN IN LEIBNIZ’ SPRACHPHILOSOPHIE.Lucia Oliveri - 2014 - In Wenchao Li (ed.), Studia Leibnitiana - Supplementa 38 Einheit der Vernunft und Vielfalt der Sprachen Beiträge zu Leibniz' Sprachforschung und Zeichentheorie. Stoccarda, Germania: pp. 55-82.
    Eine Untersuchung der Präpositionen bei Leibniz kann aufgrund ihrer synkatego-rematischen Natur zeigen, in welchem Sinne die Sprache - als strukturiertes, bedeutendes Zeichensystem – das logische Verhältnis unter den Notionen ausdrü-cken kann, und damit der Zusammenhang zwischen Grammatik und Semantik einerseits, und Logik anderseits, erhellen. Meiner Ansicht nach bekommt auch Leibniz' Versuch des Aufbaus einer characteristica universalis dank dieser Per-spektive ein neues Forschungsinteresse. Um das Interesse für diese Redeteile zu wecken, werde ich zuvor in einem kurzen Exkurs die vorgängige Tradition dar-stellen. (...)
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  5. Definite Descriptions.Paul Elbourne - 2013 - Oxford University Press.
    Paul Elbourne defends the Fregean view that definite descriptions ('the table', 'the King of France') refer to individuals, and offers a new and radical account of the semantics of pronouns. He draws on a wide range of work, from Frege, Peano, and Russell to the latest findings in linguistics, philosophy of language, and psycholinguistics.
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  6. The double life of 'The mayor of Oakland'.Michael Rieppel - 2013 - Linguistics and Philosophy 36 (5):417-446.
    The Fregean analysis of definite descriptions as referring expressions predicts that copular sentences with definite descriptions in postcopular position are invariably interpreted as identity statements. But as numerous diagnostics show, such sentences are frequently capable of receiving a predicational reading. A uniform Fregean analysis therefore won’t do. Things aren’t that simple, however. I show that descriptions which exhibit the structure [the + N + of + Proper Name] fall into two semantically distinct classes, and that the members of one of (...)
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  7. Knowledge-the and propositional attitude ascriptions.Berit Brogaard - 2008 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 77 (1):147-190.
    Determiner phrases embedded under a propositional attitude verb have traditionally been taken to denote answers to implicit questions. For example, 'the capital of Vermont' as it occurs in 'John knows the capital of Vermont' has been thought to denote the proposition which answers the implicit question 'what is the capital of Vermont?' Thus, where 'know' is treated as a propositional attitude verb rather than an acquaintance verb, 'John knows the capital of Vermont' is true iff John knows that Montpelier is (...)
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  8. Sharvy's theory of definite descriptions revisited.Berit Brogaard - 2007 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2):160–180.
    The paper revisits Sharvy's theory of plural definite descriptions. An alternative account of plural definite descriptions building on the ideas of plural quantification and non-distributive plural predication is developed. Finally, the alternative is extrapolated to account for generic uses of definite descriptions.
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  9. Descriptions: Predicates or quantifiers?Berit Brogaard - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (1):117 – 136.
    In this paper I revisit the main arguments for a predicate analysis of descriptions in order to determine whether they do in fact undermine Russell's theory. I argue that while the arguments without doubt provide powerful evidence against Russell's original theory, it is far from clear that they tell against a quantificational account of descriptions.
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  10. Descriptions with adverbs of quantification.Delia Graff Fara - 2006 - Philosophical Issues 16 (1):65–87.
    In “Descriptions as Predicates” (Fara 2001) I argued that definite and indefinite descriptions should be given a uniform semantic treatment as predicates rather than as quantifier phrases. The aim of the current paper is to clarify and elaborate one of the arguments for the descriptions-aspredicates view, one that concerns the interaction of descriptions with adverbs of quantification.
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  11. Desires, Scope, and Tense.Delia Graff - 2003 - Philosophical Perspectives 17 (1):141-163.
    According to James McCawley (1981) and Richard Larson and Gabriel Segal (1995), the following sentence is three-ways ambiguous: -/- Harry wants to be the mayor of Kenai. -/- According to them also, the three-way ambiguity cannot be accommodated on the Russellian view that definite descriptions are quantified noun phrases. In order to capture the three-way ambiguity of the sentence, these authors propose that definite descriptions must be ambiguous: sometimes they are predicate expressions; sometimes they are Russellian quantified noun phrases. After (...)
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  12. Descriptions: Frege and Russell combined.Oswaldo Chateaubriand - 2002 - Synthese 130 (2):213 - 226.
  13. A Companion to Philosophical Logic.Dale Jacquette (ed.) - 2002 - Malden, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell.
    This collection of newly comissioned essays by international contributors offers a representative overview of the most important developments in contemporary philosophical logic. Presents controversies in philosophical implications and applications of formal symbolic logic. Surveys major trends and offers original insights.
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  14. Descriptions and Logical Form.Gary Ostertag - 2002 - In Dale Jacquette (ed.), A Companion to Philosophical Logic. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. pp. 177–193.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Preliminaries Descriptions and Quantification Descriptions and Predication Conclusion.
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  15. Descriptions as predicates.Delia Graff Fara - 2001 - Philosophical Studies 102 (1):1-42.
    Although Strawson’s main aim in “On Referring” was to argue that definite descriptions can be used referentially – that is, “to mention or refer to some individual person or single object . . . , in the course of doing what we should normally describe as making a statement about that person [or] object” (1950, p. 320) – he denied that definite descriptions are always used referentially. The description in ‘Napoleon was the greatest French soldier’ is not used referentially, says (...)
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  16. Identity Statements.David Wiggins - 1965 - In R. J. Butler (ed.), Analytic Philosophy, 2nd edition. Blackwell. pp. 40-71.
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  17. Russell's theory of descriptions vs. the predicative analysis: A reply to Graff.Berit Brogaard - unknown
    I. Descriptions in Predicative Position The predicative analysis and Russell’s theory part company when it comes to the argument structure assigned to sentences like (1). (1) Washington is the greatest French soldier. On a standard Russellian analysis, (1) has the following (a) logical form and (b) truth conditions.
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