In uttering negative existential sentences, we do not mention but use an empty singular term. A pretense account explains the use in terms of pretense. I argue that our understanding of negative existential statements can be successfully explained by Crimmins’ theory of shallow pretense if it is supplemented and reconstructed properly. First, I explain the notion of shallow pretense and supplement Crimmin’s theory with an Evansian account that we immediately grasp the phenomenology of what is pretended without a conscious effort to imagine the condition under which what is pretended can be true. Thus, shallow pretense does not consist in the counterintuitive meta-representation of the fact of pretense. Second, against the objection to Crimmins’ distinction between utterance truth-condition and modal content that it is ad hoc, I argue that there is good reason to hold the distinction for the semantics of belief reports. Finally, I argue that the distinction has a merit of explaining our intuition about the epistemic possibility associated with our use of an empty singular term.

在说出否定的存在句时，我们不提及而是使用空的单数术语。伪装帐户解释了伪装的用途。我认为，我们对否定存在陈述的理解，如果得到适当的补充和重构，可以成功地用克里明斯的浅层伪装理论来解释。首先，我解释了浅层伪装的概念，并用埃文斯式的叙述补充了克里明的理论，即我们立即掌握了伪装的现象学，而无需有意识地努力去想象伪装成真的条件。因此，浅薄的伪装不在于伪装事实的违反直觉的元表示。其次，反对克里明斯区分话语真值条件和情态内容的反对意见，即特别地，我认为有充分的理由对信念报告的语义进行区分。最后，我认为这种区别有利于解释我们对与使用空单数术语相关的认知可能性的直觉。