Donnellan.

According to Donnellan, definite descriptions have both an attributive and referential use.
Consider any sentence of the form, The F is G. With an attributive use of the F, there is no particular
someone or something the speaker has in mind. The predicate G is meant to apply to whoever or
whatever fits the description. For example, after coming upon a grisly murder scene, Ben Matlock
exclaims, The murderer of Smith is insane! He might well have said, The murderer of Smith, whoever
he or she is, is insane. Matlock has no particular person in mind. Whoever it is that satisfies the
description, the murderer of Smith, is who he is attributing insanity to. In referential uses, a definite
description is simply a tool employed by a speaker to identify for their audience whoever or whatever it is
they have in mind and wish to speak about. Suppose Jones has been charged with the murder of Smith. In
the courtroom, Matlock might well comment on Jones and his behavior by saying, The murderer of
Smith is insane. Matlocks intention is to direct the attention of his listening audience to Jones in order to
say something about his odd behavior.
Further differences: For any statement of the form The F is G there is a presumption that
something the F. However, when the presupposition is false, different outcomes may obtain depending
on how the description was used. In attributive cases, when nothing is the F, nothing or no one has been
said to be G. The description appears to occur essentially in attributive uses. Donnellan claims that in
referential uses, it is not essential that anything actually satisfy the description. For example, suppose that
Smith was not murdered but was actually the victim of a random series of unfortunate and accidental
events. In the attributive case, there is no one to whom Matlock has attributed insanity. In the referential
case, though Smith has no murderer, it may very well be the case that Matlock has said something true of
Jones.
According to Donnellan, even though both uses of definite descriptions carry the presumption
that something satisfies the description, the nature of and reason for that presumption differs for each use.
Unlike attributive uses, referential uses carry an additional presumption that a particular someone or
something satisfies the description. In our example, Matlock presupposes that Jones is the murderer. The
presumption that someone killed Smith piggy backs on his belief about Jones. It follows from the fact
that, in normal circumstances, the best way identify who or what a speaker has in mind is to use a
description the speaker believes the person or thing satisfies. Therefore, there is a possibility of the
speaker mis-describing whoever or whatever they have in mind, such as when Matlock refers to Jones as
the murderer of Smith. On the other hand, in attributive uses, the speaker does not intend to refer to a
particular person or thing that they might mis-describe. When Matlock attributively says, The murderer
of Smith is insane, he has not mis-described anyone when the presupposition is false. According to
Donnellan, the presupposition is in place because if that presupposition fails, there is no possibility of
saying something true.
For any sentence of the form, The F is G, how the definite description functions cannot be
gleaned from that sentence alone. This is because any definite description can have two different uses
even as it occurs in the same sentence. The murderer of Smith is insane is one such example. According
to Donnellan, whether or not such a definite description occurs referentially or attributively is a function
of the speakers intentions and so must be analyzed in that context. Given the dual nature of definite
descriptions, the falsity of the presupposition accompanying their use can have different effects on the
truth value of the sentences in which they occur depending on how they are used. In attributive uses,
when the presupposition is false, Donnellan leaves open whether such an assertion is thereby false or
simply lacks a truth value. However, in referential uses, the mere failure of the presupposition is
insufficient for this result. It is entirely possible for an individual to make a true statement despite nothing
actually satisfying the description.