Scope note

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An instance of referential status is the collective ascription of a referential relationship between a propositional object and some entity by a community. The substance of the referential status is the communal recognition of the ascribed referential relation holding between the propositional object and the entity in question.

Instances of referential status are recognizable through evidence of community members adopting the intentional stance  and behaviour indicated as properly holding between the propositional object and the object it is taken to refer to in the manner it is meant to refer, as observable from direct witnesses, through the reports of competent observers or through evidence of a declarative act initiating this status.

Instances of referential status may come to be through a formal process such as a declarative act or may have arisen through habit, fiat or be of unknown origin. Instances of referential status may end either though a formal process, or may simply fade out, be eliminated by fiat or for unknown reasons. 

Language

en