Quine's arguments in 'Reference and Modality' show that context-sensitive predication of modal properties invites referential opacity, undermining the compositionality the nonstandard semantics was meant to preserve.

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Context-sensitive predication(as a feature that causes problems): Describing something (saying it has a certain property) where the meaning changes depending on the situation or context you're talking about.
Nonstandard semantics(as used in philosophy of language): A non-traditional or unconventional way of explaining what something means.
Quine(as a proper name referring to the philosopher whose theory is being discussed): Willard Van Orman Quine was a 20th-century American philosopher who wrote about how we know things and how language works. In this statement, we're discussing one of his specific ideas about observation.
Reference and Modality(as the title of the work being discussed): A famous 1953 essay by Quine about how names and descriptions point to things in the world, and how this breaks down when we talk about possibilities and necessity.

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