Chapter 7
Reference, Sense,Referring Expression
This chapter is discussing about the object of semantics that is is meaning and
meaning covers reference (something’s concrete) and sense (something’s abstract).
By learning about reference, sense, and referring expression that also involves
predicates and predicators that have different function when they are viewed from the
semantic roles and grammar. At the of the lesson, hopefully, the students will get clear
understanding and be able to define meaning based on the sematic notions.
7.1 Reference
is the relation between language and the world, that is a speaker indicates which
things in the world (including persons) are being talked about.
For example :
My brother is in the bathroom
Identifies identifies
person thing
In short, reference refers to entity in the world.
7.2 Sense
is the relation inside the language, for example : the English words ‘stupid’
and ‘clever’ have the sense relationship of oppositeness.
Every expression has sense but not every expression has reference, for
example : ‘nearly’ and ‘almost’ have sense but no reference.
7.3 Referring Expression
is : any expression used in an utterance to refer to something or some one
used with a particular referent in mind (Hurford et.al.,2007: )
For example :
- “Harry punched me.”
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( The speaker has a particular ‘Harry’ in his mind).
- “There is no Dino at this address.” (There is no referring expression
because ‘Dino’ doesn’t refer to any particular person in the speaker’s
mind).
Things that are included in the referring expression are :
1. Definite noun phrases of various kinds, for example :
a. The beautiful lady is laughing.
b. Those novels are very interesting.
2. Proper names, for example :
a. Edward is my best friend.
b. Nurilla is my lovely daughter.
3. Personal pronouns, for example :
a. He is a very polite man.
b. They are my brothers.
4. Longer descriptive expressions, for example :
a. The beautiful, slim lady who got married with my uncle was a doctor
b. The silver station wagon over there is mine.
7.4 An equative sentence is :
a sentence that has the same referring expressions, For examples :
a. Bandung is the capital city of West Java province
b. The first president of Indonesia is Mr. Soekarno.
7.5. An Opaque Context
is a part of sentence which could be made into a complete sentence by the
addition of a referring expressions, even though they refer to the same thing or person.
But in a given situation, will yield sentences with DIFFERENT meanings. (when it is
uttered in a given situation). (Hurford et.,al.: 2007:40)
Example :
The incomplete sentence Kristin thinks that..................is a brilliant is an opaque
context., because, even in a conversation about Indonesian politics in 2012,
the following two utterances would make different meanings.
A : ‘Kristin thinks that the President is a ‘brilliant’
B : ‘Kristin thinks that the Leader of the Democrat Party is a brilliant’
If Kristin believes erraneously that the President is not the Leader of the
Democrat Party, thus, A and B will mean different things.
Practice :
1). In a conversation about a situation where Arif is standing alone in the
corner, do ‘Arif ’ and ‘the person in the corner’ have the same referent?
Yes/No
2). Consider the following two utterances :
‘Raden believes that Arif killed Beben’
‘Raden believes that the person in the corner killed Beben’
Assume that Raden does not know that Arif is the person in the corner; could
one of these two utterances be true and the other be false? Yes/No
3). Is Raden believes that……killed Beben an opaque context? Yes/No
4). Imagine a situation in which the last banana on the table is the prize in a
game of charades, but that Harry, who came late to the party, is not aware of
this. Do the following make the same claim in this situation?
‘Harry took the last banana’ Yes/no
‘Harrry took the prize’ Yes/No
7). Is Harry took…………….an opaque context? Yes/No
Note :
The term ‘opaque’is appropriate to be used here because these context seem to
‘block our view’ through them to the referential interpretations of referring expressions.
Notice that opaque context typically involve a certain kind of verb like: want,
believe, think, and wonder about. Note that it was oftenin the context of such opacity-
creating verbs that indefinite noun phrase could be ambiguous between referring and
non-referring interpretation, as in ‘ Stephany wants to marry a Norwegian’.
7.6 Predicator and Predicate
The discussion of the predicates will be started by discussing about the predicator.
7.6.1 Predicator
is the word or sometimes a group of words which does not belong to any of
referring expressions and which, of the reminder, makes the most specific contribution
to the meaning of the sentence. In brief, the predicator describes the state or process in
which the referring expressions are involved. (Hurford et.,al. : 2007: 47).
Examples :
asleep is a predicator in My mother is asleep and describes the state My mother
is in.
love is the predicator in The black man loved the Indian maiden and describes
maiden are involved.
wait for is the predicator is in Tommy is waiting for the downtown bus and
describes the process involving Tommy and the downtown bus.
Identify the predicators in the following sentences :
1) I am thirsty ......................................
2) Benny is in Tasikmalaya .....................................
3) The General is a traitor .....................................
4) The old lady who lives in number 40 Sudirman Street is peculiar ....................................
5) Gedung Sate is close to Gazeebo Yard .......................................
Part of sentences that can serve as predicators are : various parts of speech, such
as : adjectives (black, asleep, thirsty, peculiar), verbs (write, stink, place), preposition,
(in,between, behind) and nouns (traitor, brilliant). Despite the syntactic differences
between these different types of of words, semantically they all share the property of
being able to function as the predicators of sentences. While words of other parts of
speech, such as conjunctions (and, but, or) and article (the, a), cannot serve as
predicators in sentences.
The semantic analysis of simple declarative sentences reveals two majors
semantic roles played by different subparts of the sentence. These are the role of
predictor as illustrated on the above examples , and the role(s) of argument (s), played
by the referring expression(s).
Examples :
1) Maman is Sundanese Predicator : Sundanese, Argument :Maman
2) Dadang arrested Maman Predicator : arrest, Arguments : Dadang, Maman
3) Dadang took Maman Predicator : take
Arguments:Dadang,Maman,Padang.
to Padang
Exercises : Indicate the predicators and arguments in the following sentences as in the
above examples :
1) Debora is the threat
Predicator :............................... Argument(s) :....................................
2) Robi showed Marian his Nissan Trail
Predicator : ................................. Argument(s) :.........................................
3) Didin is proud of his new job
Predicator : ............................... Argument(s) : ...........................................
4) The Gas station is outside the town
Predicator : ........................................... Argument(s) : ............................................
7.6.2 Predicate
is any word (or sequence of words) which in any given single sense can function
as a predicator of a sentence.
Examples : thirsty, in, traitor, asleep, hit, show, bottle, are all predicates; while
and, but, or, are not predicates.
Exercise : Are the following words predicate ?
1. empty Yes/No
3. girl Yes/No
4. she Yes/No
5. Januar Yes/No
6. under Yes/No
Based on the definition of ‘predicate’ above,, it contained two conditions. Firstly,
it contained ‘sequence of words’, take examples like wait for, in front of, which are
longer than one word, but which it seems to be sensible to analyse as single predicates.
Secondly, ‘in a given single sense’, is more important, and illustrates a degree of
abstractness in the notion of a predicate. A ‘word’, can be ambiguous, i.e. can have
more than one sense, but for ‘predicate’ does not allow more than one senses that may
cause ambiguity. A predicate can only have one sense.
Examples :
The word bank has at least two senses. So it allows us to speak of the
predicates bank 1, and bank 2,
I’m going to the bank.. This sentence has two different meanings, the first one
is going to a financial institution to save or withdrew the money or is going for
fishing to the river bank.
Similarly, the predicates boom, can be distinguished within three different
senses as follows : boom 1 (noun) = long spar used to keep the bottom of a sail
stretched out, boom2 (noun) = sudden increase in trade activity, and boom 3
(transitive/intransitive verb) as in The poet booming out Shakespearean
verses. (Hornby; 1974:95).
Actually, these two terms of ‘predicate’ and ‘predicator’ are different. Hurford
et.,al (2007:49) are in the opinion that the term ‘predicate’ identifies elements in the
language system, independently as seen in the example sentences discussed above.
While predicator identifies the semantic roles played by a particular word or group of
words. In this case, it has a similarity with the grammatical term ‘subject’. For example
someone, can talk of the subject of a particular sentence, but it will not make sense to
talk of a list of the subjects of English. It is the same as when someone can talk of ‘the
predicator’ in a particular sentence, but not list ‘the predicators’ of English. A simple
sentence only has one predicator, though, it may well contain more than one instance of
predicate.
Example : A slim beautiful stranger entered the Mall
The sentence has just one predicator, enter, but the sentence also contains the
words slim, beautiful, stranger, and mall. All of which are predicates and can
function as prediators in other sentences; for example :
Wati is slim
She is beautiful
She is a stranger
The Grage Mall building is a Super Market
Practice :
1) Choose which one of the following sentences does the predicate male function
as a predicator!
a) The male chimpanzee at the zoo had a bad accident last week
b) The chimpanzee at the zoo is a male
c) The chimpanzee at the zoo is male
2) Which of the following sentences does the predicate person functions as
predicator ?
a) All persons are mortal
b) shakespeare was a person
c)These skulls are person
7.7 ARGUMENT
According to Kreidler’s opinion (65-66):”In semantic analysis, every proposition
has contains one predicate and a varying number of referring expressions (Noun
Phrase) called arguments. The examples are: a plate in: A plate broke; Tommy in
Tommy broke a plate; peanut butter and in Dinar spread the peanut butter on the slice of
bread At least, we know that every simple sentence , every propositions has one
predicate and a varrying number of referring expressions (argument)s. Furthermore,
as we have already know that semantic analysis deals with meaning in which the
proposition expressed in the sentence, but not all the function words in the sentence.
In semantic analysis, firstly, Inflection is seperated from proposition. Look at the
following examples :
Tony sends his friends sms and the sentence
Tony sent his friends sms
The two sentences above have the same propositions, these are : Tony, tony’s friend,
sms. Present tense is added to the first sentence, while to the second sentence, past
tense is added.
Secondly, When Inflection , including tense is separated from Proposition, it can be
seen that the forms of the verb be (is, am, are, was, were) carry no meaning.
7.8 DEIXIS
is one which takes some element meaning from the context of situation (i.e. the
speaker, the addresse, the time and the place) of the utterance in which it is used. As
stated by Tanz in Fromkin et., al (2003:217) about deixis are as follow:
“ When language is spoken, it occurs in a specific location, at a pecific time, is
produced by a specific person and is (usually) addressed to some specific other
person or persons. Only written language can ever be free of this kind of
anchoring in the extra linguistic situation. A sentence on a slip of paper can
move through space and time,’speaker-less’, and ‘addresse-less’. All natural,
spoken languages have devices that link the uttences with its spatio-temporal
and personal context. This linkage is called ‘deixis’
7.7.1 Kinds of Deixis:
In brief, there are three kinds of deixis
Location/spatial
Personal
Verbal.
Example :The first person singular pronoun I is deictic. When Aisyah says : “ I’ve lost the
contract; the word I here refers to Aisyah. When Tommy says : “I’ll send you another
one” , the I here refers to Tommy.
7.7.2 Exercise 1 :
(1) If Hendi meets Tino in Paris van Java City and says : “This town ain’t big
enough for both of us”, what does this town refer to ?.
....................................................................................................................
(2) If television news reporter, speaking in Lhokseumawe, Aceh says :
“This town was shaken by a major earth tremor at 5 a.m. today,”
‘What does ‘this town refer to ?’
..............................................................................................................
(3) In general, what clue to the identity of the referent of a reffering expression is
given by the inclusion of the demonstrative word this ?
Formulate your reply carefully, mentioning the notion ‘utterance’.
.............................................................................................................
(4) If, on November 3rd 2005. I say, “ Everything seems to go wrong yesterday’,
What day I am picking out by the word yesterday?
..............................................................................................................
(5) If, on May 4th 2005, my daughter say to me, Yesterday wasn’t my birthday’,what
day is being picked ou by the word yesterday?
.............................................................................................................
(6) To summarize in a general statement , what day does yesterday refer to?
................................................................................................................
Exercise 2:
Are the following words deictic ?
(1) Here Yes/No
(2) Wednesday Yes/No
(3) Place Yes/No
(4) today Yes/No
(5) you Yes/No
======================================================================
=
All those examples of deictic terms have been referring expressions, like you,
here, and today, or modifiers which can be used with referring expressions, like the
demostrative this.
Example :
The verb come has a deictic ingredient, because it contains the notion ‘toward
the speaker’
Exercise 3 :
Look at the following utterances and decide whether the speaker gives any
indication of his location (yes) and if so, where he is (or he isn’t) :
1) ‘Go to the hospital’
Yes/No.................................................................................................................................
2) ‘The astronauts are going back to Erth’
Yes/No .................................................................................................................................
3) ‘Please don’t bring food into the bathroom’
Yes/No .................................................................................................................................
4) ‘Can you take this plate into the kitchen for me?’
Yes/No ...................................................................................................................................
7.8 Exercises 4:
Have you learnt unit 7? These are some questions to test your understanding of
the main ideas discussed in this unit.
1. Explain the following terms by giving two examples of each!
a) predicate f) opaque context
b) predicator g) equative sentence
c) argument h) referring expression
d) reference i) ambiguity
e) sense j) deixis
2.Indicate the arguments and predicator(s) in each sentence.
a) Dudih A.Z. is a linguist
b) Bobi loves Marni
c) Marni loves Bobi
d) Bobi gave Marni a ring
e) Cirebon is between Bandung and Jakarta
3. How does the concept of predicate in the semantic sense differ from the concept of
grammatical predicate ?
