REFERENCE AND

SENSE

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Group 4
Machsuna Indriastuti 17202244028
Nur Laila Rahmawati 17202244029
Nur Afifah Firdaus Masykuri 17202244035
Nanda Dwiana Pangestuti 17202244040
Marthen Uropka 17202249004
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Overview

By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (including

persons) are being talked about. with the first set of slides

e.g. ‘My son is in the beech tree’

Identifies Identifies
person thing

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 Differences

Sense Reference

Dealing with relationships Dealing with the relationships

inside the language. between language and the
world.

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 Example

On this page and the following ones, you will learn the difference between two quite
distinct ways of talking about the meaning of words and other expressions. In talking of
sense, we deal with relationhips inside the language; in talking of reference we deal with
the relationships between language and the world.
expression
that is the The thing you could hold between
part of the your finger and thumb (part of the
language world)
furthermore

This relationship called

‘reference.’

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REFERENCE

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 1
Definition
Reference is the relationship between the referring expression (part of
language) and referent (part of world).

e.g.
pen (the referring expression)

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 “
Example :
The name Fred in an utterance such as ‘Fred hit me’,
where the speaker has a particular person in mind
when he says ‘Fred’, is a referring expression. Fred in
‘There’s no Fred at this address’is not a referring
expression, because in this case a speaker would not
have a particular person in mind in uttering the
word

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 Characteristics

1. A referring expression is not a referent.

e.g. Washington has three syllables. Washington has 600,000 inhabitants.

(metalinguistic reference) (extralinguistic reference)

Metalinguistic reference  reference to a lexeme or other language expression.

Extralinguistic reference  reference to something outside language.
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 Characteristics

2. There is no natural connection between referring expression

and referent.

Some ancient philosophers and ancient and medieval etymologists held the opinion that there
is―or once was―a natural relation between symbol and what is symbolized. But this is simply
not so.

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 Characteristics

3. The existence of a referring exxpression does not guarantee

the existence of a referent in the physical-social world that we
inhabit.
e.g.
the skyscrapers of antarctica,
the present emperor of Texas, and
the pain-reliever recommended by 91 percent of all doctors.

In fact, we need such expressions in order to deny the existence of any physical referent.

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 Characteristics

4. Two or more referring expressions may have the same referent, but they
do not necessarily have the same meaning.

e.g.
Robert Blair
The husband of Mildred Stone Blair
The father of Patrick and Robin Blair
The city editor of the Morgantown Daily Enquirer, etc.

All these and no doubt other referring expressions may identify the same individual, but they do
not mean the same.
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 Extension VS Intension

Extension Intension

The extension of a lexeme is the The intension of any lexeme is

set of entties which it denotes. the set of properties share by
all members of the extension.

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 Example

e.g.
The capital of South Korea,
the extension of the referring expression is a single item, the city of Seoul.

The intension of the same term is ‘city in which the national government of South
Korea is located.

If the capital should be moved at some future time to another city, the extension
changes but the intension remains the same.

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 Types of Reference

1. Generic and non-generic reference

e.g.
5a A dog makes a fine pet.
5b Dogs make fine pets.
6a A dog is lying in the middle of the street.
6b Dogs are lying in the middle of the street.

In sentences 5a and 5b, a dog and dogs have generic reference  those are about the class of
dogs as whole.
In sentences 6a and 6b, a dog and dogs refer to a particular dogs. So, those are included into non-
generic reference.

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 Types of Reference

2. Specific and non-specific reference

e.g.
8a We have a dog.
8b We’d like to have a dog.
9a I’m sure there are answers to all your questions.
9b I trust we can find answers to all your questions.

In sentences 8a, a dog refers to a specific dog. We could insert the word certain before dog
without changing its meaning.
In sentences 8b, a dog would be interpreted as non-specific in reference―’some dog not any
particular one.’
It is also same for 9a and 9b.

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 Types of Reference

3. Definite and indefinite reference

The definite determiner the occurs in a referring expression when the speaker assumes that the
hearer can indentity the referent (I’ve got the tickets) or when identification is made part of the
referring expression (I’ve got the tickets that you wanted).
Indefinite determiners, a(n), some, and zero, indicate that the referent is part of a larger entity.
The referent can be identified by the addressee for one of four reasons. Those are:
1. Can identify the referent from the physical-social context,
2. Can make the necessary implicature to relate a new reference to a previous one,
3. The reference is fixed and therefore persumably part of the addressee’s general knowledge,
like Lake Ontario.
4. The referent, while not unique in the way that Lake Ontario is unique, has a unique or nearly
unique position in the more limited world of the speaker and addressee.

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Sense

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 Definition

To turn from reference to sense, the SENSE of an expression is its place in a

system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language. The
first of these semantic relationships that we will mention is sameness of
meaning, an intuitive concept which we will illustrate by example.We will
deal first with the senses of words in context.

sense relations: the meaning of any expression varies with context, what
other expressions it occurs with and what expressions it contrasts with.

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 “
Rule:
Every expression that has meaning has sense, but
not every expression has reference.

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 Summary

The notions of sense and reference are central to the study of

meaning. Every further unit in this book will make use of one or
another of these notions. The idea of reference is relatively solid and
easy to understand. The idea of sense is more elusive: it’s a bit like
electricity, which we all know how to use (and even talk about) in
various ways, without ever being sure what exactly it is. Even
semanticists aren’t sure exactly what sense is, but you’ll find that
your grasp of it and your appreciation of the usefulness of the
concept will grow as you study more. (The importance of the
sense/reference distinction was most influentially demonstrated by
the German philosopher Gottlob Frege.)

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 DEIXIS

Every language has deitic words which ‘point’ to ‘things’ in the physical-
social context of the speaker and adressee(s) and whose referents can
only be determined by knowing the context in which they are used.

e.g.
I was disappointed that you didn’t come this afternoon.
I hope you’ll jin us tomorrow.

We wouldn’t be able to identify the refernts of I, you,, us, this afternoon, or tomorrow though we
understand how the first three and the last two are related to one another.

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😉 Thank you...

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 Reference (s)

Hurford, James R., Brendan Heasly, and Michael B. Smith. 2007. Semantics A
Coursebook. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kreidler, Charles W. 2002. Introducing English Semantics. London: Routledge.

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