Chapter 2Unit 4: REFERRING EXPRESSIONS

Revision

A speaker indicates which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about.

E.g. (My son) is in (the beech tree). Reference ↓ ↓ Reference

identifies persons identifies things

• Reference:

is the relationship between parts of a language and things outside the language (in the world).

Introduction

Referring expression :

Is the range of expressions that speakers may use to refer to some object or person in the world.

Some expressions:

1. Can only be used as referring expressions

2. Can never be used as referring expressions

3. Can be used to refer or not, depending on the kind of sentence they occur in.

4. Introduce the notion (equative sentence) which is closely bound up with the idea of referring expressions.

Definition

Referring expression Any expression used in an utterance to refer to

something or someone (or a clearly delimited collection of things or people), i.e. used with a particular referent in mind.

‘Fred hit me’ The speaker has a particular person in mind ‘Fred’

is a referring expression. ‘There’s no Fred at this address’ ‘Fred’ is not a referring expression. The speaker did not have a particular person in

mind or a particular Fred his in mind. P. 37

 Indefinite noun phrases

The same expression can be a referring expression or not (or, as some would put it, may or may not have a ‘referring interpretation’), depending on the context.

This is true of indefinite noun phrases.

The linguistic context

Often gives a vital clue as to whether the indefinite noun phrase was a referring expression or not.

The linguistic context does not always give a clear indication.

P. 38

How can one resolve the ambiguities in these examples ??

The use of the word certain immediately following the indefinite article a.

Indefinite noun phrases can be referring expressions.

Whether

1. an expression is a referring expression is heavily dependent on linguistic context and

2. on circumstances of utterance.

P. 39

Definite noun phrases

Definite noun phrases have different kinds:

1. proper names (e.g. John)

2. personal pronouns (e.g. he, it)

3. Longer descriptive expressions (e.g. The man who unified the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)

Can all be used as referring expressions most frequently are used as referring expressions.

But there are examples in which they are not (or not clearly) referring expression.

Referring expression

The notion ‘referring expression’ is not always easy to apply.

Part of the difficulty encountered stems from the fact that it is not clear what we mean when we say that a speaker must have a particular individual in mind in order to refer.

But note that in the case of definite noun phrases also, the question of whether they are used as referring expressions is very much dependent on the context and circumstances of use.

Definiteness

Definiteness is a condition of the referring expression. T/F

Indefiniteness indicates that a language expression is not a referring expression. T/F

‘The boy is honest’ ‘The boy may get sick as the girl’ ‘Look there! I see a boy climbing the tree’ ‘A boy must have broken the window’

Definiteness and

Reference

NOTE: ‘Definite’ and ’indefinite’ are grammatical terms not directly parallel to the semantic terms ‘referring expression and ‘non-referring expression.

Definite & indefinite noun phrases can be used as referring expressions depending on the context and circumstances of use. T/F

A referring expression can be one word or more.

FOR EXAMPLE ‘Paris’ ‘The boy under the tree’

P. 39 - Practice 2 Normally, one expects that utterances which differ only in that they use different expressions referring to the same thing (or person) will have the same meaning.

‘John looks as if he’s about to faint’ ‘The person in the corner looks as if he’s about to faint’.

But there is a class of exceptions to this generalization. This is the class of examples involving opaque contexts.

Opaque context

Please search the meaning of OPAQUE ?

OPAQUE CONTEXT

An OPAQUE CONTEXT is a part of a sentence

which could be made into a complete

sentence by the addition of a referring

expression, but where the addition of

different referring expressions, even though

they refer to the same thing or person, in a

given situation, will yield sentences with

DIFFERENT meanings when uttered in a

given situation.

p. 411,2,3

Example

OPAQUE CONTEXT

Opaque’ is especially appropriate because these contexts seem to ‘block our view’ through them to the referential interpretations (referents) of referring expressions.

Opaque contexts typically involve a certain kind of verb, like want, believe, think, and wonder about.

Note: that it was often in the context of such opacity-creating verbs that indefinite noun phrases could be ambiguous between a referring and a non-referring interpretation, as in ‘Nancy wants to marry a Norwegian’.

EQUATIVE SENTENCE

is used to assert the identity of the referents of two referring expressions, i.e. to assert that two referring expressions have the same referent.

For example:Tony Blair is the Prime Minister .

Tony Blair = PM That woman over there is my daughter’s teacher.

EQUATIVE SENTENCE

A feature of many equative sentences is that the order of the two referring expressions can be reversed without loss of acceptability.

Example 1

The largest city in Africa is Cairo

Cairo is the largest city in Africa

Example 2

The Prime Minister is Tony Blair.

Tony Blair is the prime minister.

equative reversible + acceptable.

However, the ‘reversal test’/ ‘inversion test’ is not a perfect diagnostic for equative sentences.

What I need is a pint of Guinness

reversible + not a referring expression has no particular referent in mind not equative.

That is the man who kidnapped my boss

equative + not reversible unacceptable.

H.W The end