According to the referential semantics of names,a name's semantic contribution lies merely in its referent.Under the framework of referentialism,according to the four-elements-model of language understanding,the hearer's understanding of a singular statement containing a proper name is to grasp the singular proposition expressed by the speaker,a constituent of which is the individual entity referred to by the proper name.We argue that when the speaker and the hearer are in conflict on if the name has a refer-ent,there will be a universal problem of understanding singular statements.To solve the problem,using the notion of pretense,we propose a three-elements-model of language understanding.We argue for the model by responding to possible objections,and point out the future work to do along this line.
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