PRACTICE

Unit 4

Referring Expressions
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.
(biểu thức sở chỉ)
 Fred hit me.
Fred  a referring
expression
 There is no Fred
at this address.

Fred  NOT a
referring expression
 MINDS/ INTENTIONS
(inside ourselves)

LANGUAGE
EXPRESSIONS THE WORLD
REFERENTS
Referring ? (outside of
REFERENCE
ourselves)

My father
 MINDS/ INTENTIONS
(inside ourselves)

LANGUAGE
REFERRING THE WORLD
REFERENTS
EXPRESSIONS (outside of
REFERENCE
ourselves)
Indefinite noun phrase ???
(e.g. a man / forty buses)
Definite noun phrase ???
(e.g. the man / he / the
person who did this)
 MINDS/ INTENTIONS
(inside ourselves)
A man is walking in the street.

LANGUAGE
EXPRESSIONS THE WORLD
REFERENTS
Referring ? (outside of
REFERENCE
ourselves)

A man
 MINDS/ INTENTIONS
(inside ourselves)
The cake is as large as a man’s hand.

LANGUAGE
EXPRESSIONS THE WORLD
REFERENTS
Referring ? (outside of
REFERENCE
ourselves)

A man
 Proverbs
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

"Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes."

"One man's trash is another man's treasure."

Do the underlined words refer to a particular person or thing?

No
These utterances are proverbs, teaching moral values to people,
and the underlined nouns/pronouns do not refer to any particular
things or people in those contexts, the contexts of IMAGINATION.
Definite noun phrases come in various Definite noun phrase

Proper names: E.g. John

Can all be
used as
kinds:

Personal pronouns: E.g. referring

he/she/you/I/we expressions

Complex noun phrases:

the girl sitting over there
 Definite noun phrase
- Note that the question of whether definite noun
phrases are used as referring expressions is very
dependent on :

+ The linguistic context

+ Circumstances of use.

EX: “He” in “He’s a very polite man” said by a husband

to his wife in a conversation about their bank manager.
Some clues of referring expressions

Possessive: my friend , Paul’s hat

Demonstrative : this book, that machine

Proper name: Smith, David, Vietnam

Personal pronoun (only when being uttered) : I , you , he

Some clues of referring expressions

Constant reference (unique thing ): the sun, the

moon, the earth, the east, the west, Hallet’s Comet
…

Past tense: helps to recognize referring expression

E.g. I saw him yesterday.
 Not a referring expression
Representative
Something of social Profession/
general classes or Job
species
• family, • the poor, • singer,
society, the rich, teacher,
people, the lawyer,
… elephant, …
dogs, cats,
…

Note: Whether an expression is a referring expression or not is

heavily dependent on linguistic context and on circumstances of
utterance.
 A referring expression
1/ Definite nouns (the man/ John/ he/ …)
???
2/ Indefinite nouns (a man/ a swan/ …)
???
depending on the context
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.
Đọc cho biết -> KHÔNG THI
OPAQUE CONTEXT
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.
(ngữ cảnh tối nghĩa / không rõ)
 EQUATIVE SENTENCE
An EQUATIVE SENTENCE 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.

The following are equative sentences:

• Tony Blair is the Prime Minister of the UK in
2000.
• That woman over there is my daughter’s
teacher
 EQUATIVE SENTENCE
A feature of many equative sentences is that the
order of the two referring expressions can be
reversed without loss of acceptability.
Ex:
• The largest city in Africa is Cairo
• Cairo is the largest city in Africa
Note:

1/ What I need is a pint of Guinness.

A pint of Guinness is what I need.
(reversible, but not equative, because a user of
this sentence would not have any particular pint
of Guinness in mind)

2/ That is the man who kidnapped my boss.

(not reversible, but equative)