What’s really going on with the ham sandwich?

Abstract

Working within the framework of Relevance Theory, I investigate the nature of referential metonymy (specifically, metonymically-used definite descriptions), aiming to elucidate (i) the pragmatic mechanisms involved in referential metonymy comprehension, and (ii) the contribution of a metonymically-used definite description to the explicitly communicated content of an utterance. I propose that, while the interpretation of referential metonymy is properly inferential in nature, it cannot be explained in terms of ‘meaning modulation’ (narrowing and broadening); rather, the literal meaning of a metonymically-used referring expression remains intact, and is used as evidence of the speaker’s target referent. In addition, I argue that the referential/attributive distinction proposed by Donnellan (1966) for literally-used definite descriptions also applies to metonymically-used definite descriptions. Thus, the contribution of a metonymically-used definite description to explicit utterance content differs according to whether the definite description is used ‘referentially’ or ‘attributively’.