||It is clear enough that definite descriptions like "the F" are often used to talk about specific objects in the world. It is far less clear, however, what the significance of this claim should be for semantic theory. Some have posited that definite descriptions have a semantically-significant "referential use". Indeed, some have gone so far as to propose that there are semantically-significant referential uses of indefinite descriptions as well. When used referentially, the idea goes, descriptions serve to make the truth-conditions of the utterance of which they are a part object-dependent. In contrast, others have claimed that definite and indefinite descriptions each represent unified semantic categories, categories which serve to isolate objects only indirectly, via descriptions of them (those who allow for semantically-significant referential uses call uses in line with this analysis "attributive uses"). According to this unified analysis, descriptions can still be used in context to talk about specific objects, but this is a matter not just of their meaning, but also of the shared background assumptions of the speaker and listener. In other words, the effective use of these expressions to talk about specific objects is a matter of pragmatics, not semantics. The question of whether to allow for a semantically-significant referential use of definite and indefinite descriptions thus turns out to hinge on a set of deeper questions regarding the nature of semantics and pragmatics, and, in particular, what constitutes the border between these.