Abstract

Abstract “‘Boston’” in “‘Boston’ has six letters” is said to occur in hypostasis (or suppositio materialis). Referentially, such forms have generally been analysed in reflexive terms. They have been said to refer to themselves. This analysis is unsatisfactory for a number of linguistic reasons and has been vigorously attacked by Professor H. Steen Sørensen. In his analysis, the sign whose graphic form is made up of six letters is said to be referred to by the quotation marks around it which constitute a metasign (a metademonstrative pronoun). While this analysis is linguistically more attractive, the present paper argues instead that hypostasis forms are without meaning qua hypostasis forms. Therefore they are not signs and do not belong to language. Far from indicating ascent into ever sublimer meta- and meta-metalevels, quotation marks, when used around a hypostasis form, signal descent into the object level of insignificant graphic form.