Conceptual Evolution and Reference

Abstract

A word’s meaning, according to the argument of Chapter 3, is constituted by certain presuppositions that it is common ground speakers associate with uses of the word. Presumably there can be changes in the things that constitute a word’s meaning from one time to another, without there being change of its meaning—without the word’s coming to have a meaning distinct from that it used to have. This chapter discusses a number of accounts of what might be necessary, sufficient, or necessary and sufficient for change of meaning, though it does not endorse a particular account. Much of the chapter discusses relations between changes in reference and truth conditions and change in meaning, as well as relations among referential indeterminacy, meaning change, and ‘what is said’ by a sentence.