Peter Geach says there is a reading of sentence (1) that is true in some worlds in which:  (a) there are no witches and (b) Nob is unaware of Hob and Bob.  Nevertheless, this same alleged reading is supposed to be (c) true only if Hob and Nob are, in some sense, focused on a single “witchy” thing.

(1)        Hob thinks that a witch has blighted Bob’s mare, and Nob wonders whether she killed Cob’s sow.

Let us say that a reading of (1) with these features is a “Geachian reading.”  None of the obvious readings of (1) is Geachian.  The reading in which ‘a witch’ takes widest scope is false in witchless worlds.  The (putative) reading in which ‘a witch’ takes narrow scope under ‘thinks’, and ‘she’ means the same as ‘the witch that Hob thinks blighted Bob’s mare’, which takes narrow scope under ‘wonders’, is false in worlds in which Nob is unaware of Hob.

Salmon has argued that there are mythical witches.  He thinks that (2) provides a Geachian reading of (1).

(2)        There is a mythical witch such that Hob thinks that she has blighted Bob’s mare and Nob wonders whether she killed Cob’s sow.

I agree with Salmon about the existence of mythical witches, but I argue against his semantics for Geach’s sentence.  (2) does not provide a genuine reading of (1), because ‘mythical witch’ and ‘witch’ differ in meaning. Salmon’s (2) fails to be necessarily equivalent to the alleged reading that Geachians seek. There are also difficulties with maintaining that typical Geachians assert or otherwise pragmatically convey the proposition expressed by (2) when they utter (1).