Quotational Mixing of Use and Mention

Abstract

Quotation is employed in mentioning linguistic items, with varying degrees of specificity depending upon context, occasionally in the service of multiple purposes. It is also often employed in cases where the mentioned items are simultaneously being used in their ordinary roles. I argue that, despite appearances to the contrary, the recently proposed formal disambiguation approach to quotation fails to account for this quotational mixing of use and mention, and that given the ubiquity of the mixing in question the demonstrative theory, in its ability to accommodate such cases, fares better than its rivals. I also show that the phenomenon in question extends far beyond the paradigmatic cases of mixed quotation, where grammatical form forces us to recognize the mixing of use and mention, to cases where even whole sentences are being simultaneously used and mentioned.

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