  Running parallel to the debate about how quotations refer (how they manage to hook up with their semantic values) is a debate about what quotations refer to. One view that is widespread is that quotations are ambiguous or indeterminate. That is, one and the same quotation, e.g. “lobster” can, on this view, refer to different objects on different occasions of use, all depending on the context of utterance. Garcia-Carpintero (1994, p. 261) illustrates this kind of view and the kind of argument typically given for it. He says that “gone” can refer to any of the following: