Indirect indexical identification

Indexical expressions are typical linguistic means aimed at identifying objects in the surroundings of communication participants. Sometimes, however, by using them, one can single out objects beyond the boundaries of the communication context. For example, by using the pronoun he supplemented by an act of ostension directed at a work of art, one can identify the author of that artwork, not the work itself. This is a case of an indirect indexical identification, which consists in the fact that the object of ostension is different from the object of identification of the use of the indexical expression. This phenomenon poses a challenge to semantic theories of indexical expressions. Their content must be modeled such that the transition from the object of ostension to the object of identification is captured. The paper proposes an explanation according to which the semantic content of the occurrence of an indexical expression used for indirect identification is descriptive (rather than referential). Specifically, it is a content in which the object of identification is described on the basis of its contextually relevant relationship to the object of ostension, which can also be expressed through a suitable descriptive expression. Such an explanation avoids some of the problems that indexical terms used for indirect identification bring.