Referring Expression PDF

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UNDERSTANDING REFERRING EXPRESSION

By Tantri Sundari
I. Introduction
One major goal of communication is both speaker and listener can understand
each others utterances. When two people in conversation refer repeatedly to objects,
they typically converge on the same (or similar) referring expressions (Appelt, 1985,
p. 1). When speakers refer to something, sometimes object or an exotic, unfamiliar
one, they are faced with many choices. Successful referring requires that the speaker
and addressee be able to take, at least for the moment, the same perspective on a
referent. Once a referring expression has been presented by a speaker, it may be
accepted and taken up by the addressee, or it may be adjusted, depending on whether
the addressee understands and accepts the perspective it expresses (Dale & Reiter,
1995, p. 234). Once both partners have enough evidence to believe they are talking
about the same thing, the mapping between the referent and the perspective has been
grounded (Metzing & Brennan, 2003, pp. 1-2). Unless the context changes, they tend
to use the same referring expression again or else a similar but shortened one when
they continue to talk about the same referent.
Kreidler and Gisborne (2000, p. 130) state that 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. That something is the referent, not necessarily physical or
necessarily real. Reference relations can be of different kinds; referents can be in a real
or imaginary world, in discourse itself, and they may be singular, plural, or collective.
Some expressions can have possibilities on toward referring expression, they are it can
be used as referring expressions, it can never be used as referring expressions, it can
be used to refer or not, depending on the kind of sentence they occur in (Hurford,
Heasley, & Smith, 2007, p. 37). We often use metonymy in referring, identifying
some entity, especially a person, by some characteristic associated with the entity, as
when we refer to someone as when a waitress asks a group of people seated at one
table, ―Which of you is the tuna salad?‖(Kreidler & Gisborne, 2000, p. 132).
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Based on the explanation above, this paper will discuss about reference,
referring expression, kinds of referring expression, linguistics expression which can
never be used to refer, opaque context, and equative sentence.
II. A Review of Reference
Reference is generally construed as the relationship between nouns or
pronouns and objects that are named by them. Reference is a relationship between
parts of a language and things outside the language (in the world) (Hurford et al.,
2007, p. 27). Reference is symbolic relationship that a linguistic expression has with
the concrete object or abstraction it represents (Hartmann & Stork, 1972, p. 193). The
word ―John‖ refers to the person John. The word ―it‖ refers to some previously
specified object. The object referred to is called the ―referent‖ of the world. John as a
name refers to a person is called as symbol. This may be simply illustrated by a
diagram, in which the three factors involved whenever any statement is made, or
understood, are placed at the corners of the triangle, the relations which hold
between them being represented by the sides.
Referring
Expression
(Ogden, Richards, Malinowski, & Crookshank, 1946, p. 11)

Between a thought and a symbol causal relations hold. When we speak, the
symbolism we employ is caused partly by the reference we are making and
partly by social and psychological factors—the purpose for which we are
making the reference, the proposed effect of our symbols on other persons, and
our own attitude. When we hear what is said, the symbols both cause us to
perform an act of reference and to assume an attitude which will, according to
circumstances, be more or less similar to the act and the attitude of the speaker.
Referring expression is holding position as the symbol in the diagram.
2
III. A. Definition of 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. (Hurford et al., 2007, p. 37). While in the other
book, 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. (Kreidler & Gisborne,
2000, p. 130). There is also another description of referring expression as a linguistic
form which enables a listener, or reader, to identify something (Yule, 1996, p. 134).
Example:
‗Fred hit me,‘ ‗Fred‘, is a referring expression.
Fred in ‗There‘s no Fred at this address‘ is not a referring expression
(Hurford et al., 2007, p. 37)
A referring expression is used to identify, but the identification may be valid only
temporarily (the girl in the purple sweater) and it need not be true: you may know who
I mean when I refer to that stupid clown but your ability to identify doesn‘t
depend on your agreeing with the of referring. Lyons (2009) explain that the vast
majority of referring expressions in natural languages are context-dependent in one
way or another. Not even proper names have a unique, context independent reference;
and this fact is all too often forgotten. The context-dependence of most referring
expressions has the semantically important consequence that the proposition conveyed
by the utterance of a sentence tends to vary with the context of utterance. For example
(Lyons, 2009, p. 169), ―My friend has just arrived,‖ can be used to make a statement
about indefinitely many different individuals according to the reference of ‗my friend‗
on particular occasions of utterance. When we talk of semantic relations holding
between sentences by virtue oftheir propositional content, we do so under the tacit or
explicit assumption that the reference of all referring expressions is held constant.
IV. Referring and Non-Referring Expression

We can apply this distinction in two ways. Firstly there are linguistic
expressions which can never be used to refer, for example the words so, very, maybe,
if, not, all. These words do of course contribute meaning to the sentences they occur
in and thus help sentences denote, but they do not themselves identify entities in the
3
world. (Saeed, 2003, p. 26). We will say that these are intrinsically non-referring
items. By contrast, when someone says the noun cat in a sentence like That cat looks
vicious, the noun is a referring expression since it is being used to identify an entity.
So nouns are potentially referring expressions. The second use of the distinction
referring/non-referring concerns potentially referring elements like nouns: it
distinguishes between instances when speakers use them to refer and instances when
they do not. For example,the indefinite noun phrase a cholecystectomy is a referring
expression in the following sentence (Saeed, 2003, p. 27):
 They performed a cholecystectomy this morning.
(where the speaker is referring to an individual operation), but not in:
 A cholecystectomy is a serious procedure.
(where the nominal has a generic interpretation). Some sentences can be ambiguous
between a referring and a non-referring reading, as is well known to film writers. Our
hero, on the trail of a missing woman, is the recipient of leers, or offers, when he tells
a barman I‘m lookingfor a woman. We know, but the barman doesn‘t, that our hero
won‘t be satisfied by the non-referring reading.
V. Kind of Referring Expression

a. Indefinite Noun Phrase
NPs which begin with a/an (an elephant, a big lie), ―indefinite
descriptions‖, are prototypical examples of indefinite NPs. (Plural indefinite
descriptions use the determiner some.) (Abbott, 2006, p. 1). Indefinite
determiners, a(n), some and zero, indicate that the referent is part of a larger
entity (Kreidler & Gisborne, 2000, p. 143). This is used when the noun that we
wish to refer to is unknown to our listener/ reader or is not part of the common
ground that we share, it is most often used to introduced new information
(Heim, 2011, p. 86). When the referring expression is indefinite, the hearer
has to make a choice from the extension of the noun—that is, has to decide
which of all possible referents—what part of the extension—is intended.
Frequently in a discourse a topic is introduced as an indefinite referring
expression (new information) and subsequent mention of the topic is made
with one or more definite referring expressions (given information) (Lyons,
2009, p. 152).
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For example (Sainsbury, 2007, p. 126):

 I met a girl last night. She was absolutely gorgeous.
 A mosquito is buzzing about our room. It is keeping me awake.
b. Definite Noun Phrase

Noun phrases (NPs) which begin with the (e.g. the Queen of England, the
book), which are also called (especially in the philosophical literature) ―definite
descriptions‖, are generally taken to be prototypical examples of definite NPs in
English. (Abbott, 2006, p. 1). Demonstrative, possessive, and quantitative
determiners identify a referent in a fairly precise way (Kreidler & Gisborne, 2000,
p. 142).
The definite determiner the occurs in a referring expression when the
speaker assumes that the hearer can identity the referent (I‘ve got the tickets) or
when identification (Heim, 2011, p. 88). By using ―the,‖ we are signaling to our
listener that he/she likely to know what we are referring to and that the content of
our conversation should help them to identify this. A noun phrase of any structure,
such as: the taxi in the taxi's waiting outside; the apple on the table in Bring me the
apple on the table; and those five boys in Those five boys were off school last
week. In those languages which, like English, encode definiteness, referring
expression is typically marked for definiteness (Abbott, 2006, p. 354). Names like
Richard and Barbara are definite and specific as referring expressions even though
there are numerous people so named, just as there are numerous babies, reports and
doctors. Expressions like the baby and Richard have unique status within a certain
group of people during a particular period of time. The Mayor has unique status for
a larger group of people, presumably, than the baby, and the President has this
status for a still larger group. The uniqueness of these expressions may be
temporary: the baby grows older, we change doctors, Richard moves out of our
lives. A definite noun phrase presupposes the existence of its referent and an
indefinite noun phrase presupposes the existence of more than its referent, a
class of referents to which this one belongs (Rosa & Arnold, 2008, p. 30). In the
examples given, this is done by the definite article the or the demonstrative
adjective, here those. We can use ―the‖ therefore to (Sainsbury, 2007, p. 129):
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1) Refer backwards to something that we have already mentioned

2) Refer forwards to something that we can take for granted will happen
3) Refer to our common ground or shared knowledge
Based on Hurford et al. (2007, p. 39) there are three kinds of various
kinds of definite noun phrase, proper name ( John), Personal name (he, she, it),
Longer description (The man who shot Abraham Lincoln was an unemployed
actor).
a) Proper Name
The simplest case of nominals which have reference might seem to
be names. Names after all are labels for people, places, etc. and often seem
to have little other meaning. It does not seem reasonable to ask what the
meaning of Karl Marx is, other than helping us to talk about an individual.
Of course, context is important in the use of names: names are definite in
that they carry the speaker‘s assumption that her audience can identify the
referent. So if someone says to you: ―He looks just like Eddie Murphy‖ the
speaker is assuming you can identify the American comedian (Saeed,
2003, p. 27).
Based on seminar dissertation by Heim (2011) one important
approach can be termed the description theory, associated in various forms
with Russell, Frege, and Searle. Here a name is taken as a label or
shorthand for knowledge about the referent, or in the terminology of
philosophers, for one or more definite descriptions. So for Christopher
Marlowe, for example, we might have such descriptions as The writer of
the play Dr Faustus or The Elizabethan playwright murdered in a Deptford
tavern. In this theory understanding a name and identifying the referent are
both dependent on associating the name with the right description.
According to Knott and Vlugter (2008) explanation is the causal theory
espoused by Devitt and Sterelny, and based on the ideas of Kripke and
Donnellan. This theory is based on the idea that names are socially
inherited, or borrowed. At some original point, or points, a name is given,
let us say to a person, perhaps in a formal ceremony. People actually
present at this begin to use this name and thereafter, depending on the fate
of the named person and this original group, the name may be passed on to
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other people (Heim, 2011, p. 121). In the case of a person who achieves
prominence, the name might be used by thousands or millions of people
who have never met or seen the named person, or know very much about
him. So the users of the name form a kind of chain back to an original
naming or grounding. It may arise from a period of repeated uses.
Sometimes there are competing names and one wins out; or mistakes may
be made and subsequently fixed by public practice. The great advantage of
this causal theory is that it recognizes that speakers may use names with
very little knowledge of the referent (Sainsbury, 2007, p. 67). It is easy to
think of examples of historical figures whose names we might bandy about
impressively, but, sadly for our education, about whom we might be hard
pressed to say anything factual.
b) Personal Pronoun
A referring expression with a personal pronoun as head is definite
and specific (Kreidler & Gisborne, 2000, p. 152). Occurrences of pronouns
are dependent for their interpretation on some feature of the context
(Sainsbury, 2007, p. 125). Demonstrative pronouns like ‗that‘ typically
depend upon an act of demonstration, for example, pointing. Indexicals
like ‗I‘ depend for their reference upon who utters them (Saeed, 2003, p.
188). Pronouns like ‗he‘ may stand in place of a proper name or other
referring expression, and so depend upon that name or other expression.
Pronouns are also used in the expression of generality, and then their
interpretation depends upon the word or phrase primarily responsible for
that generality (‗all‘, ‗some‘, ‗many‘) and by which they are governed
(Lyons, 2009, p. 117). They occur in connection with indefinite noun
phrases, a fact which may or may not be subsumable under dependence
upon quantifiers. Tradition divides the kinds of dependence into two:
dependence on linguistic elements of the context, as when a pronoun
stands in for an earlier occurrence of a proper name; and dependence on
non-linguistic elements. The depth of this distinction can be questioned,
but it is convenient (Sainsbury, 2007, p. 126).
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c) Longer description or noun phrase

Noun phrase or nominal phrase is a phrase which has a noun (or
indefinite pronoun) as its head word, or which perform the same
grammatical function as such a phrase (Juvonen, 2006, p. 484). A noun
phrase can consist of the noun head, and be companied by modifiers,
determiners or complement. Noun phrase often function as verb subjects
and object, as predicative expression, and as the complement of
preposition. Noun phrase can be embedded inside each other, for instance
the noun phrase some of his constituents contains the sorter noun phrase
his constituents (Heim, 2011, p. 201). A noun phrase has a noun head, a
determiner, and perhaps a complement and/or modifier. The determiner
determines the way of referring that a particular referring expression has,
though there is no simple correlation between determiner and way of
referring. A referring expression with a proper noun as head is definite
and specific. A noun phrase with a common noun as head may be generic
or not, specific or not, definite or not. Two determiners are demonstrative;
others indicate quantity; and others show possession. Quantity may be
specific or general and if it is total, it may be collective or distributed
(Kreidler & Gisborne, 2000, p. 152). For example, the only white people
who came to our house were welfare workers and bill collectors.
VI. Opaque Context

An opaque context 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. (Hurford et al., 2007, p. 40). The term opaque figuratively describes the fact
that the truth or falsity of the subordinate clause seems to be independent of the truth
or falsity of the whole sentences (Saeed, 2003, p. 321).
For example (Saeed, 2003, p. 368):
 Jones believes that the leader of the Black Gulch Gang is a sociopath.
If Jones does not know that his wife is the leader of the Black Gulch Gang we can also
take the sentence below to be true at the same time
8
 Jones doesn‘t believe his wife is a sociopath.

Because of what Jones knows, we are not ascribing contradictory beliefs to him, even
though the nominals his wife and the leader of the Black Gulch Gang denote the same
individual. This is a typical effect of belief contexts and it is described as opaque
contexts. In this type of example the opacity is associated with embedded clauses
under verbs of propositional attitudes like believe, want, suspect, hope, etc.
 The Captain suspects that a detective in the squad is taking bribes.
If we take the example above mean that the Captain suspects a particular detective,
this is called the specific or transparent reading. If, on the other hand, we take the
example above mean that the Captain suspects that one of the detectives is involved
but doesn‘t know which one, this is called the non-specific or opaque reading.
In another terminology used in logic, the transparent reading (the captain
knows which individual) is given the Latin label the de reinterpretation (meaning
roughly ‗of the thing‘) while the opaque reading is called the de dicto interpretation
(roughly ‗Of what is said‘) (Sainsbury, 2007, p. 129). In the mental spaces approach
these two interpretations do not arise from any ambiguity in the sentence but from two
different space-connecting strategies that hearers may use. Nor are opaque contexts
restricted to verbs of propositional attitude: they are a regular consequence of
referential strategies. To show this, we might go back to an example of identifying
actors and parts(Appelt, 1985, p. 33). Notice that opaque contexts typically involve a
certain kind of verb, like want, believe, think, and wonder about (Hurford et al., 2007,
p. 41).
VII. 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
referen (Hurford et al., 2007, p. 41). Equative sentences are a construction indicating
that two noun phrases are equivalent. The term equative is used in linguistics to refer
to construction where two entities are equated with each other (Saeed, 2003, p. 370).
Example: That woman over there is my daughter‘s teacher (Hurford et al., 2007, p.
42), equate two entities ―that woman‖ and ―my daughter‘s teacher‖. In English
equative are typically expressed using copular verb such as ‖be,‖ although this is not
the only use of this verb. Equatives can be contrasted with predicative constructions
9
where one entity is identified as a member of a set, such as Susan is a president. The
term equative is also sometimes applied to comparative –like constructions in which
the degrees compared are identical rather than distinct, such, John is as stupid as he is
fat (Sainsbury, 2007, p. 142).
VIII. Conclusion
A referring expression, in linguistics, is any noun phrase, or surrogate for a

noun phrase, whose function in discourse is to identify some individual object (thing,
being, event). The technical terminology for identify differs a great deal from one
school of linguistics to another. The most widespread term is probably refer, and a
thing identified is a referent. We have to know that not all expression can be use to
refer to something. Both indefinite and definite noun phrases can be ambiguous
between referring and non-referring interpretations, with the appropriate interpretation
being highly dependent on linguistic context and the circumstances of the utterance.
Various devices can be used for reference: name, personal pronoun, or noun phrase.
The existence of opaque contexts and equative sentence also provides interesting
complications to the contribution of referring expressions to meaning.
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References
Abbott, B. (2006). Definite and indefinite. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and
linguistics (Vol. 8, pp. 354). Boston: Elsevier.
Appelt, D. E. (1985). Planning english referring expressions. Artificial Intelengence, 26(1), 1-
33.
Dale, R., & Reiter, E. (1995). Computational Interpretations of the Gricean Maxims in the
Generation of Referring Expressions. Cognitive Science, 18(1995), 233-263
Hartmann, R. R. K., & Stork, F. C. (1972). Dictionary of language and linguistics. London
Applied Science
Heim, I. R. (2011). The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. New York:
Garland Press.
Hurford, J. R., Heasley, B., & Smith, M. B. (2007). Semantics: a coursebook. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Juvonen, P. (2006). Articles, Definite and Indefinite. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of
Language and Linguistics (pp. 484-487). Boston: Elsevier.
Knott, A., & Vlugter, P. (2008). Multi-agent human–machine dialogue: issues in dialogue
management and referring expression semantics. Artificial Intelligence, 172(12), 69–
102.
Kreidler, C. W., & Gisborne, N. (2000). Introducing English semantics. London: Routledge.
Lyons, J. (2009). Language and linguistics: Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Metzing, C., & Brennan, S. E. (2003). When conceptual pacts are broken: Partner-specific
efects on the comprehension of referring expressions. Journal of Memory and
Language, 49(1), 201–213.
Ogden, C. K., Richards, I. A., Malinowski, B., & Crookshank, F. G. (1946). The meaning of
meaning. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Rosa, E. C., & Arnold, J. E. (2008). The Role of Attention in Choice of Referring Expression.
Artificial Intelligence, 12(3), 28-36.
Saeed, J. (2003). Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Sainsbury, R. M. (2007). Reference without Referents. New York: Oxford University Press.
Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press.
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KEMENTERIAN PENDIDIKAN NASIONAL Kampus Ketintang, Surabaya, 60231

UNIVERSITAS NEGERI SURABAYA Telepon/Faksimile: +231 8293484

UNDERSTANDING REFERRING EXPRESSION

(Ogden, Richards, Malinowski, & Crookshank, 1946, p. 11)

III. A. Definition of Referring Expression

IV. Referring and Non-Referring Expression

V. Kind of Referring Expression

For example (Sainsbury, 2007, p. 126):

b. Definite Noun Phrase

1) Refer backwards to something that we have already mentioned

c) Longer description or noun phrase

VI. Opaque Context

 Jones doesn‘t believe his wife is a sociopath.

VII. Equative Sentence

A referring expression, in linguistics, is any noun phrase, or surrogate for a

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