How should we best analyse the meaning of proper names, indexicals, demonstratives, both simple and complex, and definite descriptions? In what relation do such expressions stand to the objects they designate? In what relation do they stand to mental representations of those objects? Do these expressions form a semantic class, or must we distinguish between those that arc referential and those that are quantificational? Such questions have constituted one of the core research areas in the philosophy of language for much of the last century, yet consensus remains elusive: the field is still divided, for instance, between those who hold that all such expressions are semantically descriptive and those who would analyse most as the natural language counterparts of logical individual constants.The aim of this thesis is to cast new light on such questions by approaching them from within the cognitive framework of Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory.Relevance Theory offers not just an articulated pragmatics but also a broad conception of the functioning of natural language which differs radically from that presupposed within (most of) the philosophy of language. The function of linguistic expressions, on this conception, is not to determine propositional content, but rather to provide inferential premises which, in parallel with context and general pragmatic principles, will enable a bearer to reach the speaker's intended interpretation.Working within this framework, I shall argue that the semantics of the expressions discussed should best be analysed not in terms of their relation to those objects which, on occasions of use, they may designate, but rather in terms of the indications they offer a hearer concerning the mental representation which constitutes the content of a speaker's informative intention. Such an analysis can, I shall claim, capture certain key data on reference which have proved notoriously problematic, while respecting a broad range of apparently conflicting intuitions.

Much work in relevance theory relies on the kinds of method and data familiar to linguistic philosophers: essentially introspection and native speaker intuitions on properties such as truth conditions, truth values, what is said, etc. Recently, however, relevance theorists have been at the forefront of a newly-emerging research field, experimental pragmatics, which aims to apply the empirical techniques of psycholinguistics to questions about utterance interpretation. Over the last few years, this new research methodology has thrown up interesting and sometimes surprising insights into the psychological processes underlying human communication and comprehension, some of which are discussed in this article.

In this paper my aim is to approach the referential-attributive distinction in the interpretation of definite descriptions, originally discussed by Donnellan (1966), from a cognitive perspective grounded in Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/95). In particular, I argue that definite descriptions encode a procedural semantics, in the sense of Blakemore (1987), which is neutral as between referential and attributive readings (among others). On this account, the distinction between referential and attributive readings arises as a result of the differing links that exist between different types of mental representation and the world, rather than as a result of the differing links between language and mental representations.

Compositionality and semantic innocence seem intuitively plausible constraints on a semantic theory. It has, however, proved notoriously difficult to respect both principles within a single framework. In this paper I argue that their apparent incompatibility derives from an overly-strong formulation of the principles. I propose an alternative weaker formulation which allows for both principles to be respected within a single semantic framework while satisfying the intuitions which motivate the two principles.

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