Abstract

In Meaning as Species, Mark Richard provides an argument to the conclusion that stipulation can transiently create perfect intralinguistic synonymy. The key to achieve this is the notion of meaning as "abstracted common ground” (ACG). In this thesis, I argue that Richard’s argument is not enough to ensure the existence of perfect synonymy. It remains possible to coin a new term, stipulate that it has the same meaning(-cum-ACG) as a previous one, and yet make the case that the coined term is only an instance of the original term. This is important if we use a notion of perfect synonymy for which it is necessary, for two words to be synonyms, that they are different words. To defend my claim, I deal with two distinct notions of perfect synonymy, the criterion of equinormality, and the distinction between word-instances and word-types.