Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Supposition theory is a medieval account of the semantics of terms as they function in sentences. The word ‘supposition’ is probably interchangeable with our word ‘reference,’ but I'll leave it as ‘supposition’ so as to identify the medieval source of the theory I discuss here. Medieval writers had a great deal to say about supposition; this paper focuses on only one part of the theory, the study of what is now generally called the theory of <jats:italic>modes of common personal supposition.</jats:italic> The word ‘common’ is used here as in ‘common term,’ as opposed to ‘singular term,’ but in fact, the theory focuses on common terms <jats:italic>along with the quantifiers that accompany them.</jats:italic> The word ‘personal’ is a technical term indicating that the word in question is used in its normal way to refer to the things it is true of, as distinguished from occurrences in which it refers to itself (as in “Giraffe’ is a noun’) or refers to a particular thing intimately related to the things it is true of (as in ‘Giraffe is a species’).</jats:p>