Semantics 1

B.S (English) 8th Semester

SHORT QUESTIONS
Q1: What is meant by a referring expression?
Ans: A referring expression is a piece of language, a noun phrase, that is used in an utterance
and is linked to something outside language, some living or dead or imaginary entity or concept
or group of entities or concepts.
Q2: Define the term ‘referent' and different ways of referents?

Ans: A referent is the concrete object or concept that is designated by a word or expression. A
referent is an object, action, state, relationship or attribute in the referential realm.

There are three ways in which referents differ from one another:

• Unique like Lake Ontario versus Non-unique like a lake

• Concrete, such as an apricot, versus Abstract, such as an idea
• Countable like a bottle, several bottles versus Non – countable like milk

Q3: Define the term ‘Extension’ and ‘Intension' through example?

Ans:

Extension

The extension of a lexeme is the set of entities which it denotes. The extension of bird includes all
robins, parrots, ducks, and ostriches etc.

Intension

The intension of any lexeme is the set of properties shared by all members of the extension. Thus
everything that is denoted by lake must be a body of water of a certain size surrounded by land.
Q4: Define Primary referring expression and Secondary referring expression?
Ans:
• Primary referring expression:
Primary referring expression is a noun phrase like a dog, your friend, George, Adams, the flower
in that basket; they refer directly to the referents.
• Secondary referring expression
Secondary referring expressions are headed by pronoun and they refer indirectly: their referents
can only be determined from primary referring expressions in the context in which they are used.
Examples of secondary referring expressions are: he, the big ones, ours, that one.
Q5: Enlist different kinds of referring expression?

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Semantics 2
B.S (English) 8th Semester

Ans: There are three kinds of referring expression.

Proper names which have unique reference like Lake Ontario or Barbara Collins
Pronoun such as she, he, they
Noun phrase that have noun with variable reference as the head, preceded by a determiner and
possibly followed by one or more complements.

Q6: Define Fixed Reference?

A referring expression has fixed reference when the referent is a unique entity or unique set of
entities, like Lake Ontario, Japan, Boris Yeltsin, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Philippine Islands.
When a referring expression has fixed reference, knowledge of it is part of one’s general
knowledge; we either know what the Dead Sea Scrolls are or we don’t know (though of course we
may learn what they are from the context in which the Dead Sea Scrolls occurs).

Q7: What is meant by Variable Reference?

A referring expression has variable reference if its referent may be different every time it is
used: that dog, my uncle, several people, a lake, the results. Recognizing the referent when the
expression has variable reference is a matter of specific knowledge; one has to identify that dog,
my uncle or the results from the physical or linguistic context, including knowledge of the speaker,
perhaps.

Q8: Define concrete and abstract referents?

Ans: Lexemes such as dog, door, leaf, stone denote concrete objects, which can be seen or
touched; the objects denoted by lexemes like idea, problem, reason, knowledge are abstract; they
cannot be perceived directly through the senses.

Example: Consider these contrasts:

Literal Meanings Figurative Meanings

the key to the front door the key to success

a bright light a bright future

Q9: Define concrete and abstract non – countable references?

Concrete non – Countable

Non-countable phrases, if their references are concrete, have three kinds of reference.

Saima Ambreen – Roll # Bsf1601734

Semantics 3
B.S (English) 8th Semester

• Some refer to continuous substances, such as apple sauce, ink, mud and toothpaste, which
do not consist of natural discrete parts.
• Others name substances that consist of numerous particles not worth counting, like sand
and rice.
• A counts non-countables are like furniture, jewellery, luggage, collections whose parts
have quite different names.

Abstract non – Countable

Then there are abstract non-countables such as advice, information, beauty, which are treated, in
the English language, as indivisible.

Q10: Describe demonstrative reference?

Ans: Demonstrative: The demonstrative determiners this and that indicate, respectively, that
the referent is near or not near the speaker’s location.

• We’ll use this table and those chairs (over there).

They also identify present or future events versus past events.

• We’re going to see ‘Madame Butterfly’ tonight. We’ve been waiting for this performance
for a long time.
• We saw ‘Rigoletto’ last month. That was a great performance.

Saima Ambreen – Roll # Bsf1601734