  There’s a great deal of specific data that these theories claim to be able to explain. The most important of these is the possibility of mentioning without quotation marks (as in spoken language and in written language when no quotation marks are used). If we take appearances at face value, that means meta-linguistic discourse (call it mentioning or quotational use) can take place in the absence of quotation marks. Hence, an account of meta-linguistic discourse must proceed independently of an account of the semantics (or pragmatics) for quotation marks.