Since Kripke and Kaplan introduced rigid designation as an alternative to the Frege/Russell analysis of referential terms as definite descriptions, there has been an ongoing debate between `descriptivists' and `referentialists', mostly focusing on the semantics of proper names. Nowadays descriptivists can draw on a much richer set of linguistic data (including bound and accommodated proper names, and bound, shifted and deferred first person pronouns) as well as new semantic machinery (E-type syntax/semantics, DRT, presupposition-as-anaphora) to strengthen their case. After reviewing the current state of the debate, I propose a novel approach, combining an essentially referentialist, two-dimensional semantics with modern insights from the side of the descriptivists. This hybrid analysis is shown to account for both the classic philosophical examples and the new linguistic data in a principled fashion.

@ARTICLE{maier08rigpres,
  author = {Emar Maier},
  title = {Proper names and indexicals trigger rigid presuppositions},
  year = {to appear},
  journal = {Journal of Semantics},
  url = {http://ncs.ruhosting.nl/emar/em_rigpres.pdf}
}