Consider "I am Maynard"
"Maynard" is a reference so
semantically eq. to
"I am me" so the
information is transferred
nonsemantically
REWRITTEN:
We often introduce ourselves in the following way:
"I am Maynard."
Here, 'Maynard' is a name which refers to me. So the semantics of 'I am' act on the referent, me, so the sentence is semantically equivalent to
"I am me."
So the actual information of the sentence, that my name is "maynard" is transferred outside of the semantics.
On the other hand, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX equality acts on references, not referents. I think that we may take "is" to denote equality.
Then, the sentence essentially says,
"I" and "Maynard" refer to the same object
And since we have quoted the references in this, it is unsuprising sic that information having to do with the references, rather than the referents, is passed.
This has been a mess of an explanation, but I think I have done good enough for my future self.
And I had, as some time later I created a better write-up of this idea.