• REFERENCE
• A REFERRING EXPRESSION
• A REFERRING EXPRESSION is any expression used in an utterance to refer
to something or someone (or a clearly delimited collection of things or
people), i.e. used with a particular referent in mind.
• The name Fred in an utterance such as ‘Fred hit me’, where the
speaker has a particular person in mind when he says ‘Fred’, is a
referring expression.
• Fred in ‘There’s no Fred at this address’ is not a referring expression,
because in this case a speaker would not have a particular person in
mind in uttering the word.
• (1) When a speaker says, ‘A man was in here looking for you last night’ is a man being used
to refer to a particular man?
• (2) So, in the above example, is a man a referring expression?
• (3) When a speaker says, ‘The first sign of the monsoon is a cloud on the horizon no bigger
than a man’s hand’, is a man being used to refer to a particular man?
• (4) Is a man in this example a referring expression?
• (5) Is forty buses, used in ‘Forty buses have been withdrawn from service by the Liverpool
Corporation’, a referring expression?
• (6) Is forty buses, used in ‘This engine has the power of forty buses’, a referring expression?
• INDEFINITE NOUN PHRASE
• Nancy wants to marry a Norwegian.
• John is looking for a car.
• DEFINITE NOUN PHRASE
• John is my best friend.
• ‘He’s a very polite man’, said by a husband to his wife in a conversation about their
bank manager.
• ‘If anyone ever marries Nancy, he’s in for a bad time’.
• OPAQUE CONTEXT
• It 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 incomplete sentence Laura Bush thinks that ... is a genius
constitutes an opaque context, because, even in a conversation
about American politics in 2007, the following two utterances would
make different claims:
A: ‘Laura Bush thinks that the President is a genius’
B: ‘Laura Bush thinks that the Leader of the Republican Party is a
genius’
, • If, for example, Laura Bush believes erroneously that the President
is not the Leader of the Republican Party, then A and B will mean
different things
• The term ‘opaque’ is especially appropriate because these contexts seem
to ‘block our view’ through them to the referential interpretations of
referring expressions.
• Notice that opaque contexts typically involve a certain kind of verb, like
want, believe, think, and wonder about.
• Equative sentence
• It 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.
• Joko Widodo is the president of Republic of Indonesia.
• That woman is my sister.
Predicates
List of word that can be predicator
• A predicate is any word (or sequence of words) which (in a given single
sense) can function as the predicator of a sentence.
• The predicator of a simple declarative sentence is the word (sometimes a
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. intuitively speaking, the predicator describes
the state or process in which the referring expressions are involved.
• asleep is the predicator in Mummy is asleep and describes the
state Mummy is in.
• love is the predicator in The white man loved the Indian maiden
and describes the process in which the two referring expressions the
white man and the Indian maiden are involved.
• wait for is the predicator in Jimmy was waiting for the downtown
bus and describes the process involving Jimmy and the downtown
bus.
• predicators
• The predicators in sentences can be of various parts of speech: adjectives
(red, asleep, hungry, whimsical), verbs (write, stink, place), prepositions
(in, between, behind), and nouns (crook, genius). Despite the obvious
syntactic differences between these different types of words, semantically
they all share the property of being able to function as the predicators of
sentences. Words of other parts of speech, such as conjunctions (and, but,
or) and articles (the, a), cannot serve as predicators in sentences.
• PREDICATOR and argument
• The semantic analysis of simple declarative sentences reveals two major
semantic roles played by different subparts of the sentence. These are the
• A REFERRING EXPRESSION
• A REFERRING EXPRESSION is any expression used in an utterance to refer
to something or someone (or a clearly delimited collection of things or
people), i.e. used with a particular referent in mind.
• The name Fred in an utterance such as ‘Fred hit me’, where the
speaker has a particular person in mind when he says ‘Fred’, is a
referring expression.
• Fred in ‘There’s no Fred at this address’ is not a referring expression,
because in this case a speaker would not have a particular person in
mind in uttering the word.
• (1) When a speaker says, ‘A man was in here looking for you last night’ is a man being used
to refer to a particular man?
• (2) So, in the above example, is a man a referring expression?
• (3) When a speaker says, ‘The first sign of the monsoon is a cloud on the horizon no bigger
than a man’s hand’, is a man being used to refer to a particular man?
• (4) Is a man in this example a referring expression?
• (5) Is forty buses, used in ‘Forty buses have been withdrawn from service by the Liverpool
Corporation’, a referring expression?
• (6) Is forty buses, used in ‘This engine has the power of forty buses’, a referring expression?
• INDEFINITE NOUN PHRASE
• Nancy wants to marry a Norwegian.
• John is looking for a car.
• DEFINITE NOUN PHRASE
• John is my best friend.
• ‘He’s a very polite man’, said by a husband to his wife in a conversation about their
bank manager.
• ‘If anyone ever marries Nancy, he’s in for a bad time’.
• OPAQUE CONTEXT
• It 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 incomplete sentence Laura Bush thinks that ... is a genius
constitutes an opaque context, because, even in a conversation
about American politics in 2007, the following two utterances would
make different claims:
A: ‘Laura Bush thinks that the President is a genius’
B: ‘Laura Bush thinks that the Leader of the Republican Party is a
genius’
, • If, for example, Laura Bush believes erroneously that the President
is not the Leader of the Republican Party, then A and B will mean
different things
• The term ‘opaque’ is especially appropriate because these contexts seem
to ‘block our view’ through them to the referential interpretations of
referring expressions.
• Notice that opaque contexts typically involve a certain kind of verb, like
want, believe, think, and wonder about.
• Equative sentence
• It 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.
• Joko Widodo is the president of Republic of Indonesia.
• That woman is my sister.
Predicates
List of word that can be predicator
• A predicate is any word (or sequence of words) which (in a given single
sense) can function as the predicator of a sentence.
• The predicator of a simple declarative sentence is the word (sometimes a
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. intuitively speaking, the predicator describes
the state or process in which the referring expressions are involved.
• asleep is the predicator in Mummy is asleep and describes the
state Mummy is in.
• love is the predicator in The white man loved the Indian maiden
and describes the process in which the two referring expressions the
white man and the Indian maiden are involved.
• wait for is the predicator in Jimmy was waiting for the downtown
bus and describes the process involving Jimmy and the downtown
bus.
• predicators
• The predicators in sentences can be of various parts of speech: adjectives
(red, asleep, hungry, whimsical), verbs (write, stink, place), prepositions
(in, between, behind), and nouns (crook, genius). Despite the obvious
syntactic differences between these different types of words, semantically
they all share the property of being able to function as the predicators of
sentences. Words of other parts of speech, such as conjunctions (and, but,
or) and articles (the, a), cannot serve as predicators in sentences.
• PREDICATOR and argument
• The semantic analysis of simple declarative sentences reveals two major
semantic roles played by different subparts of the sentence. These are the
