CHAPTER IV
REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
GROUP 3
1. AMERA GITA TRISNAWAN (1520084007)
2. YANIDYA ULFA RISANTI (1520084016)
3. ASIH DWI PRISDIYANTI (1520084017)
REFERRING EXPRESSION
A referring expression is any expression used in an utterance to
refer to something or someone (Hurford, et al.: 2007).
Example :
1. Fred hit me.
2. Rania is friendly.
3. She is studying Semantics.
1. Is Fred in “There is no Fred in this address.” a referring
expression?
No
Because in this case a speaker would not have a particular person
in mind in uttering the word.
REFERRING EXPRESSION (cntd)
A referring expression is a noun phrase.
e.g.
Definite - John is my bestfriend
- The man who shot
(specific) Abraham Lincoln was an
unemployed actor.
Noun phrase
Indefinite e.g.
A man was in here looking for
(not specific) you last night.
REFERRING EXPRESSION (cntd)
Usually, referring expression uses definite noun phrases.
However, not all definite noun phrases are referring expression.
For instance, the person who cut the victim into pieces in “The
person who cut the victim into pieces must be insane.”
Note:
Different expressions referring to the same thing/person do not
always have the same meaning.
e.g. Negeri Sakura and Negeri Matahari Terbit refer to the same
country, Japan.
Negeri Sakura: A country which is famous with sakura.
Negeri matahari terbit: A country which is located in East (A place
where the sun starts rising)
Negara Maritim and Jamrud Khatulistiwa = Indonesia
OPAQUE CONTEXT
Opaque context is a sentence which has a blank, when the blank
is completed by two different expressions that have same referent; the
sentence would have different meanings.
Typically opaque context involve a certain kind of verbs, such as want,
believe, and wonder about.
e.g
George believes that ... is a genius.
Mrs. Smith wants that ... will be successful.
PART OF REFERRING
SENTENCE EXPRESSIO SENTENCE
N
Uttered in a given situation
OPAQUE SAME DIFFERENT
CONTEXT REFERENT MEANING
PART OF REFERRING
SENTENCE EXPRESSIO SENTENCE
N
Lois believes Lois believes
that ... is an that SBY
SBY is an ex-
ex-president
Uttered in a given situation
president.
OPAQUE SAME DIFFERENT
CONTEXT REFERENT MEANING
Lois believes Lois believes
that ... is an that Obama
Obama is an ex-
ex-president
president.
EQUATIVE SENTENCE
An equative sentence is one which is used to declare that
two referring expressions found in the sentence have the same
referent.
e.g.
1. Donal Trump is the president of the USA.
2. The tall boy standing there is Nancy’s fiancé.
Equative sentence is reversible
e.g.
The sentence
Sultan Hassanudin is the hero called Ayam Jantan dari Timur
has the same meaning as
The hero called Ayam Jantan dari Timur is Sultan Hassanudin.
REMEMBER!
The reversal test is not a perfect diagnostic test for determining
equative sentences.
e.g.
1. What we need is a demrocratic government. (Reversible, but NOT
equative)
2. That is the man who kidnapped the activists. (Equative, but NOT
reversible)
