Unit 4: REFERRING EXPRESSIONS

A REFERRING EXPRESSION is 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.
(………………………………)
 There is no Fred
at this address.

Fred  NOT a
referring expression

Fred hit me.

Fred  a referring
expression
 MINDS/ INTENTIONS
(inside ourselves)

LANGUAGE
REFERRING THE WORLD
REFERENTS
EXPRESSIONS (outside of
REFERENCE
ourselves)
Indefinite noun phrase ???
(e.g. a man / forty buses)
Definite noun phrase ???
(e.g. the man / he / the
person who did this)
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

"Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes."

"One man's trash is another man's treasure."

Do the underlined words refer to a particular person or thing?

Definite noun phrases come in various Definite noun phrase

Proper names: E.g. John

Can all be
used as
kinds:

Personal pronouns: E.g. referring

he/she/you/I/we expressions

Complex noun phrases:

the girl sitting over there
 Definite noun phrase
- Note that the question of whether definite noun
phrases are used as referring expressions is very
dependent on :

+The linguistic context

+Circumstances of use.

EX: He in “He’s a very polite man” said by a husband to

his wife in a conversation about their bank manager.
Some clues of referring
expressions

Possessive: my friend , Paul’s hat

Demonstrative : this book, that machine

Proper name: Smith, David, Vietnam

Personal pronoun (only when being uttered) : I , you , he

Some clues of referring expressions

Constant reference (unique thing ):the sun, the

moon, the earth, the east,the west, Hallet’s Comet
…

Past tense: helps to recognize referring expression

E.g. I saw him yesterday.
 Not a referring expression
Representative
Something of social Profession/
general classes or Job
species
• family, • the poor, • singer,
society, the rich, teacher,
people, the lawyer,
… elephant, …
dogs, cats,
…

Note: Whether an expression is a referring expression or not is

heavily dependent on linguistic context and on circumstances of
utterance.
Practice (p37)
Practice (p37-38)
Practice (p38)
• Every expression that has meaning has sense,
but not every expression has reference.
• Ex: of, in, about,..
Practice (p39)
Practice (p39)
 A referring expression:
1/ Definite nouns (the man/ John/ he/ …)
???
2/ Indefinite nouns (a man/ a swan/ …)
???
depending on the context
A REFERRING EXPRESSION is 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.
 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.
(ngữ cảnh tối nghĩa / không rõ)
 EQUATIVE SENTENCE
An EQUATIVE SENTENCE is one which 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.
The following are equative sentences:
• Tony Blair is the Prime Minister
• That woman over there is my daughter’s
teacher
Practice (p42)
• A feature of many equative sentences is that
the order of the two referring expressions can
be reversed without loss of acceptability.
• Example:
• The largest city in Africa is Cairo
• Cairo is the largest city in Africa
• However,
1/ What I need is a pint of Guinness
A pint of Guinness is what I need
(reversible, but not equative, because a user of
this sentence would not have any particular pint
of Guinness in mind)
2/ That is the man who kidnapped my boss
(not reversible, but equative)