Unit 3 Reference and Sense

What is the difference between reference and sense ??? Reference deals with the relationships between language and the world. Sense deals with the relationships inside the language.

Definition: By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about. E.g. My son is in the beech tree. identifies identifies person thing

So we have two things: 1- the English expression (part of the language) 2- the thing (part of the world). Some expressions in a language can have variable reference, e.g. “your ear”. Some expressions, in everyday talk, never refer to different things, e.g. ‘the moon’.

Sense: Definition: the sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language. 1- the first of these semantic relationship is the sameness of meaning in words, phrases and sentences.

almost I nearly fell over. Marry took off her jacket. Marry took her jacket off. In some cases one word can have more than one sense. 1. I have an account at the bank of Scotland.

Moreover, one sentence can have different senses. 2. We steered the raft to the other bank of the river. Moreover, one sentence can have different senses. E.g. He greeted the girl with a smile. 1- Smiling, he greeted the girl. 2- He greeted the smiling girl.

Rule: every expression that has meaning has sense, but NOT every expression has reference. E.g. almost, probable, and ,if. None of these words refers to a thing in the world. However, all of them have some sense.

Just as the same sense can be found in different languages, different expression in different dialect of one language can have the same sense. E.g. He wrote the lesson. (perfect translation=same sense) Pavement(BE) = sidewalk (AE). Ex. P.33

Unit 4: Referring expressions A referring expression is any expression used in an utterance to refer to something or someone, i.e. used with a particular referent in mind. Compare Fred: Fred hit me. There is no Fred at this address.

The same expression can be a referring expression or not depending on context. 1- indefinite noun phrase: Compare a man in (a) and (b), a) A man was in here looking for you last night. b) The first sign of a monsoon is a cloud in the horizon no bigger than a man’s hand. Which one is a referring expression?

The linguistic context often gave vital clue to whether the indefinite noun phrase was a referring expression or not. However, in some cases it does not give a clear indication as in ‘John is looking for a car.’ This sentence is ambiguous. It depends on whether the speaker has a particular car in mind.

This ambiguity can be resolved by the use of the word certain immediately following the indefinite article a, as in: John is looking for a certain car. 2- definite noun phrase: Different noun phrases of various kinds (such as proper names, personal pronouns and longer descriptive expressions) can all be used as referring expressions.

However, they may also be used as NOT referring expressions. e.g. ‘it’ in: Every man who owns a donkey beats it. * The question whether definite and indefinite noun phrases are used as referring expressions is dependent on the context of use.

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.

The complete sentence ‘Dennis thinks that … is a genius’ constitutes an opaque context, because, even in a conversation about British politics in 1982, the following two utterances would make different claims: Dennis thinks that the Prime Minister is a genius. Denis thinks that the Leader of the Conservative Party is a genius. If, for example, Denis thinks erroneously that the Prime Minister is not the Leader of the Conservative Party, the a and b will mean different things.

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. Mrs. Tatcher is the Prime Minister. John is the person in the corner. 3. Ted is an idiot. 4. Cairo is not the largest city in Africa.

* A feature of many equative sentences is that the order of the two referring expression can be reversed without loss of acceptability. The largest city in Africa is Cairo. Cairo is the largest city in Africa. * However, the reversal test applied here is not always perfect.