Referring Expressions

18.12.
2009
Referring expressions, Predicates, Universe of Discourse, Deixis, and

Definiteness
2 Referring expressions
• REFERRING EXPRESSION- any expression used in an utterance to refer to something or
someone (used with a particular referent in mind)
Fred in ‘Fred hit me’, but not in ‘There’s no Fred at this address’.
• Indefinite noun phrases can be referring expressions, depending on the context: a man
in ‘A man came looking for you’, but not in ‘A man has to watch his back’.
ambiguos cases-resolved by the use of certain following the indefinite article.
• Definite noun phrases (proper names, personal pronouns, longer descriptive
expressions) are most frequently used as referring expressions, but not always (the Fred
example)
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• OPAQUE CONTEXT- part of a sentence which could be made into a complete sentence
by adding a referring expression, but where the addition of different referring
expressions, even though they refer to the same thing or person, will result in sentences
with different meanings. O. contexts usually involve verbs such as want, think, believe,
wonder about.
Laura Bush thinks that...is a genius- opaque context resolved by adding e.g. President or
the Leader of the Republican Party. If Laura erroneously believes that the President is
not the Leader of the Republican Party, then the sentences have different meanings.
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• EQUATIVE SENTENCE- used to assert the identity of the referents of two referring
expressions , i.e. to assert that two referring expressions have the same referent.
Equative sentences can be false.
Barack Obama is the President of the United States.
George W. Bush is the President of the United States.
5 Predicates
• 2 major semantic roles of simple declarative sentences’ subparts: role of argument(s)
(played by referring expression(s)) and role of predicator
• Despite some overlap, semantic analysis of a sentence into predicator and argument(s)
# grammatical analysis into subject and predicate.
• PREDICATOR of a simple declarative sentence is the word or group of words which does
not belong to any of the referring expressions and which, of the remainder, makes the
most specific contribution to the meaning of the sentence. It describes the state or
process in which the referring expressions are involved.
genius in Einstein was a genius, in in Cairo is in Africa are predicators
• Nouns, (main) verbs, adjectives and prepositions can function as predicators, but
conjunctions and articles cannot
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• PREDICATE- any word or sequence of words which (in a given single sense) can
function as the predicator of a sentence
• ‘sequence of words’- wait for, in front of
• ‘in a given single sense’- bank1, bank2- two different predicates
• predicate vs. predicators- predicate identifies elements in the language independently of
particular example sentences; predicator identifies the semantic role played by a
particular word or words in a particular sentence.
A tall, handsome stranger entered the saloon – enter the only predicator, at the same
time predicate along with tall, handsome, stranger, room which can function as
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predicators in other sentences (He is tall, He is handsome, He is a stranger, That

building is a saloon)
•
•
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• DEGREE of the predicate is a number indicating the number of arguments it is normally
understood to have in simple sentences
asleep is a predicate of degree one (one-place predicate)
love is a predicate of degree two (two-place predicate)
give is a predicate of degree three (three-place predicate)
• The majority of adjectives are one-place predicates (John is tall), except for adjectives
which require prepositions (Cars are different from bikes) and are two-place predicates.
• The majority of nouns are one-place predicates (John is a teacher), except for a few
‘inherently relational’ nouns: father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, neighbour,
etc. which are two-place predicates (John is the brother of the current President).
8 Referring expressions vs. Predicates
• Distinction between referring expressions and predicates- absolute. An expression is
used in a given utterance either to refer to some entity in the world or it is not used in
such a way.
• Proper names are always used as referring expressions and verbs and prepositions as
predicates. Indefinite noun phrases can be used as both.
• Predicates do not refer, but can be used when contained in the meaning of a referring
expression to identify the referent of that expression
predicates of in the corner – in and corner. These predicates help to identify the referent
of the referring expression the man who is in the corner.
9 Universe of Discourse
• GENERIC SENTENCE- sentence in which some statement is made about a whole
unrestricted class of individuals, as opposed to any particular individual. They can be
introduced by either a or the (or neither).
Man is mortal, but not That man is mortal.
• UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE- (defined for any utterance as) the particular world, real or
imaginary, that the speaker assumes he is talking about at the time
although not accepted by all semanticists, any expression that can be used to refer to an
entity in the real world or in any imaginary world can be thought of as a referring
expression (unicorn, God)
interlocutors need to have the same u. of discourse if communication is to be successful
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• Even though expressions such as two hundred, the national anthem, two o’clock do not
indicate physical objects, we may call them referring expressions. They do not refer to a
physical entity, but to a particular number, particular song, particular time, etc.
11 Deixis and Definiteness
• DEIXIS (Greek ‘pointing’)- occurrence of deictic words
• DEICTIC WORD- word which which takes some element of its meaning from the context
or situation (speaker, addressee, time, place) of the utterance (e.g. personal pronouns,
demonstratives, adverbs of time and place, some predicates like come- ‘toward the
speaker’).
• Besides deictic words, there are in English and other languages grammatical devices-
tenses which are also regarded deictic because past, present, and future times are
defined by reference to the time of the utterance: My sister wrote you a letter. (my
sister wrote the letter before the time of my utterance)
• In reported speech, deictic terms occurring in the original utterance may be translated
into other, possibly non-deictic, terms in order to preserve the original reference.
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• DEFINITENESS- a feature of a noun phrase selected by a speaker to convey his
assumption that the hearer will be able to identify the referent of the noun phrase,
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usually because it is the only thing of its kind in the context of the utterance, or because
it is unique in the universe of discourse (this/the book, the Earth).
• However, the use of e.g. definite articles does not guarantee semantic definiteness: The
whale is a mammal vs. The whale just bit off my friend’s leg!

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18.12.

Referring expressions, Predicates, Universe of Discourse, Deixis, and

predicators in other sentences (He is tall, He is handsome, He is a stranger, That

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