The distinction between ‘partial’ and ‘total’ interpretations (models) is discussed and related to the distinction between proof-theoretical and model-theoretical treatments of logic. It is claimed that there is a parallel between the construction of a proof based on a set of premises and e.g. the production of a natural-language text which is based on information in some kind of data-base. The main part of the paper is devoted to a discussion of the relations between the deduction rules traditionally associated with (...) the existential quantifier and notions pertaining to the theory of reference such as specificity and referentiality /attributivity. Two types of specificity are distinguished, which can be connected with ‘Existential Elimination’ and ‘Existential Introduction’, respectively. A distinction is further made between trivial and non-trivial ‘Existential Introduction’, where only the latter kind involves erasure of ‘coreference links.’ It is argued that an analogous treatment of the referential-attributive distinction is a way of making sense of Donnellan's suggestion that the latteT may depend on the description's role in an argument. Finally, the notions of 'external anchoring' and ‘stability of individual concepts’ are related to the distinctions made earlier in the paper. (shrink)