CHAPTER 3: Reference,

referent and sense

REFERENCE
Example 1: My students are in Room A120.
• my students  identifies people
• Room A120  identifies thing.
Example 2: Write on the blackboard, please.
• The blackboard identifies an object placed in a
classroom and you can write things on it (a real object
of the world/ a little part of the world).
•  the relationship between the phrase the blackboard
and the real object of the world is called reference.
• Definition: By means of reference, a speaker indicates
which things in the world (including persons) are being
talked about.
REFERENT
 Your left ear (real object) is the
referent of the phrase your left
Your left ear ear

Reference is the relationship between

your left ear (real object) and the
phrase your left ear (language)

One expression can be used to refer to different things. Some expressions in a

There are many possible referents for the phrase your language can have variable
left ear. reference.
variable reference
 These expressions have
constant reference.

• In fact, there is very little constancy of reference in

language: the Moon, the Sun, etc.
• Two different expressions can have the same referent.
• The classic example is the Morning Star and the Evening Star, both of
which normally refer to the planet Venus. These expressions have co-
reference.
SENSE
• DEFINITION: The sense of a word or a linguistic
expression shows the internal relationship between that
word or expression and others in the vocabulary of a
language.
• Ex: teacher and student have a sense relationship.
-> teacher: the one who gives lessons; student: the one
who has the lesson given by the teacher
• Ex2: The dog is chasing the cat  has some sense
• Ex3: The dog is human  has no sense.
• Ex4: The King of Vietnam is bald  has some sense but
the phrase the King of Vietnam has no reference.
SENSE

• When we talk about sense, we will mention the sameness of

meaning.
One sentence can have different senses.
SENSE
SUMMARY
Summary: Gap-filling
1.When the same linguistic expression refers to different
referents, it has ___________.
2.When one linguistic expression refers to one and the same
referent, it has __________: the sun, the moon, Halley’s comet,
the People’s Republic of China, Angola, the United Nations,
FIFA, UNESCO, etc.
3.When two or more linguistic expressions share the same
referent, they have __________.
4.Every expression that has meaning has ____, but not every
expression has _____.
5.In some cases, the same word can have more than _______.
6.One sentence can have _________.
Exercises
Questions
1. Can different expressions have the same referent? Give 1 example.
2. Can the same expression have different referents? Give 1 example.
3. Explain this sentence in your own word: “Every expression that has
meaning has sense, but not every expression has reference”.
Mini-test
CHAPTER 4:
REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
DEFINITION
• Ex1: ‘Fred hit me’.
 The name Fred in the above utterance is a referring expression
because the speaker has a particular person in mind when he utters
“Fred”.
• Ex2: ‘There is no Fred at this address’.
 The name Fred in the above utterance is NOT a referring expression
because the speaker does not have a particular person in mind when
he utters “Fred”.
 Whether an indefinite NP is a referring
expression or not depends heavily on
The above sentences have How to ________ and on circumstances of the
some ambiguity. resolve? utterance.
Definite NPs such as these most frequently are used as referring expressions.
In the case of definite noun phrases, the question of whether they are
used as referring expressions is very much dependent on the _____
and ________ of use.
OPAQUE CONTEXT: EXAMPLES
• Example:
In a conversation about a situation where John is standing
alone in the corner, do ‘John’ and ‘the person in the corner’ have the same
referent?
YES
• ‘Dick believes that John killed Smith.’
• ‘Dick believes that the person around the corner killed Smith.’
Assume that Dick does not know that John is the person in the corner;
could one of these two utterances be true and the other false?
YES
• Dick believes that ___________ killed Smith.
 OPAQUE CONTEXT
• The Morning Star
• The Evening Star
the planet Venus.
Assuming that Nancy does not know this, do the
following make the same claim about Nancy’s wishes?
• ‘Nancy wants to get married when the Morning Star is in
the sky’
• ‘Nancy wants to get married when the Evening Star is in
the sky’
NO
• Nancy wants to get married when . . . is in the sky
 OPAQUE CONTEXT
OPAQUE CONTEXT: DEFINITION
• 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.
Opaque contexts typically involve a certain kind of verb, like: want,
believe, think, and wonder about, etc.
EQUATIVE SENTENCES
• Example:
1. Hanoi is the capital city of Vietnam.
2. That woman over there is my teacher’s daughter.
ÞEQUATIVE SENTENCES

• DEFINITION: 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.
 REVERSAL TEST

REFERRING EXPRESSIONS

What I need is a pint of Guiness.

That is the man who kidnapped my
boss.
MINI-TEST
PART 1:
Say which of the following sentences are equative (E), and which are
not (N).
(a) My parrot is holidaying in the South of France E / N
(b) Dr Kunastrokins is an ass E/N
(c) Tristram Shandy is a funny book E/N
(d) Our next guest is Dr Kunastrokins E/N
PART 2: Circle the referring expressions in the following
sentences.
(a) I am looking for any parrot that can sing
(b) Basil saw a rat
(c) These matches were made in Sweden
(d) A dentist is a person who looks after people’s teeth
PART 3:
1.Give an example of an expression that could have
variable reference.
2.Give an example of an expression that always (in
normal everyday conversation) has constant reference.
3.Give an example of an expression that has no
reference.
4.Which of the following is a correct description of
‘reference’? Circle your choice.
(a) a relationship between expressions and other
expressions which have the same meaning
(b) the set of all objects which can potentially be referred
to by an expression
(c) a relationship between a particular object in the world
End-of-unit Test
• Explain the ambiguity in this sentence: I am looking for a pencil.
Chapter 5: Predicates
DE
CL
AR
ATI
VE

SE
NT
EN
CES
 in
between
stink
red
genius
Predicator: definition

Ex1. Mommy is asleep.

Ex2. The white man loved the Indian maiden.
Ex3. Jimmy was waiting for the downtown bus.
 Declarative sentences
have 2 semantic roles

ARGUMENT
PREDICATOR
Predicate: Definition
Predicate: Definition

(1)Examples: wait for, in front of,  longer than one word

 it seems sensible to analyse as single predicates.
(2) A ‘word’  can be ambiguous,
i.e. bank (n,v): have more than one sense
But
• we use ‘predicate’ in a way which does not allow a
predicate to be ambiguous.
• A predicate can have only one sense.
predicate or predicator?
• The term ‘predicate’ identifies elements in the language
system, independently of particular example sentences.
• The term ‘predicator’ identifies the semantic role played
by a particular word (or group of words) in a particular
sentence.
• A simple sentence only has one predicator, although it
may well contain more than one instance of a predicate.
• It would make sense to envisage a list of the predicates
of English, as included in a dictionary.
Degree of Predicate
Ex1: John was asleep.
PREDICATOR: ASLEEP, ARGUMENT: JOHN
asleep is an ONE-PLACE PREDICATE (a predicate of degree one)
Ex2: Tommy loves Laura.
PREDICATOR: LOVE, ARGUMENT: TOMMY, LAURA
love is a TWO-PLACE PREDICATE (a predicate of degree two)
Prepositions as Predicate
Adjs as Predicate
 Adjs as Predicate

afraid of, different from, etc.  prepositions are NOT PREDICATES.

Some adjectives in English just require (grammatically) to be joined to a following
argument by a preposition.
Such prepositions are relatively meaningless linking particles.
Nouns as Predicates

Most nouns are one-place predicates

Some nouns are said to be “inherently relational”
 they can be two-place predicates.
Determine the degree of the predicates in these sentences.
• Ronald is foolish; Ronald is a fool
• Timothy is afraid of cats, Timothy fears cats
• My parrot is a talker, My parrot talks
two predicates can have nearly the same sense, but be of different
grammatical parts of speech
Have the same degree
Exercis
e1
Identity relation
Examples:
• George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United
States
• The 43rd President of the United States is George W.
Bush
Equative sentence?
Equative sentences show identity relation.
In English, the identity of the referents of two different
referring expressions is expressed by a form of the verb
be.  IDENTITY PREDICATE
Exercise 4
 Identity predicate in identity
relation
a device for ‘carrying’ the
BE tense
A grammatical device for linking
a predicate
Exercise 2

Exercise 3
Exercise 5

Exercise 6
Chapter 6: Predicates,
Referring Expressions and
Universe of Discourse
Some expressions are almost always referring
expressions no matter what sentences they occur in.

An expression is used in a given utterance to refer to

some entity in the world?
YES  Referring expression
NO  Predicating expression
• Note 1: There are some phrases, in particular indefinite noun phrases, that can be used in
two ways, either as referring expressions, or as predicating expressions.
(1) John attacked a man  referring expression
(2) John is a man  predicating expression
• Note 2: The presence of a predicate in a referring expression helps the hearer to identify
the referent of a referring expression.
Example:
The phrase in the corner contains ____ predicates.
The phrase the man who is in the corner is a __________.
The ______ in the phrase in the corner help to identify the ______of the phrase the man
who is in the corner.
The phrase the bald man contains _____ predicates.
The predicate bald is contained in the meaning of the phrase the bald man
The predicate man is contained in the meaning of the phrase the bald man
• To sum up, predicates do not refer. But they can be used by a hearer
when contained in the meaning of a referring expression, to identify
the referent of that expression.
• Speakers refer to things in the course of utterances by means of
referring expressions. The words in a referring expression give clues
which help the hearer to identify its referent.
GENERIC SENTENCE
• Simple sentence : Subject (Referring expression) + Predicate
• Ex1: The whale is the largest mammal.
Referring expressions: None
A GENERIC SENTENCE
• Ex2: That whale over there is a mammal
Referring expression: That whale over there
NOT a GENERIC SENTENCE
DEFINITION: A GENERIC SENTENCE is a sentence in which some
statement is made about a whole unrestricted class of individuals, as
opposed to any particular individual.
 reference
parrots
Language is used for talking
about things in the real
world

existent things any expression

that can be used
to refer to any
referring expressions entity in the real
things we talk about world or in any
imaginary world
Ref
erri
ng

exp
ress
ion
s
UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE
• UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE for any utterance IS DEFINED as the
particular world, real or imaginary (or part real, part imaginary), that
the speaker assumes he is talking about at the time.
• Do the speakers in the following talk about the Real world or a
Fictitious world?
Exercise 1
Exercis
e2