Nouns, Names, and Abstract Kinds

This chapter attempts to derive a host of grammatical properties of nouns and names from a single hypothesis about the essence of nominality: that nouns are, at the most fundamental level of analysis, names for abstract categories of entities, semantically modelled as kinds. It is well known that kind-denoting nominals have some of the syntactic properties of names, even when they are not proper names like Ursus Arctos but uses of common nouns like bears. The reason, it is argued, is that kind-level interpretation and naming function are defining properties of nominality. This hypothesis not only accounts for the observations that initially justified the view of certain nominals as names for kinds, but also for other phenomena. In particular, a precise characterization of abstract objects as having a denotation domain without internal part structure makes it possible to clarify when mass terms like gold are used as names, and when names like Falstaff are used as mass terms. A primitive interpretation as an abstract sort also accounts for the syntax of nouns naming numbers and days of the week. A precise hypothesis about the essence of nominality, then, unifies the explanation for a wide range of linguistic phenomena.