'I am not here now'

Abstract

Recorded messages and written notes are a source of befuddlement for the philosopher of language interested in the semantic behaviour of indexical expressions.It is a consequence of certain prima facie harmless premisses that sentences such as 'I am here now' may never be uttered falsely.But this conclusion is at odds with apparently true instances of 'I am not here now', written on a piece of paper or recorded in an answering machine.Assuming that our intuitions on the truth-values of recorded messages are to be trusted, it must be the case that some of the traditional assumptions in the semantics of indexicals ought to be rejected.So, where exactly did the traditional account of 'I', 'here', and 'now' go wrong, and what adjustments are required?

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