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KEMENTERIAN PENDIDIKAN NASIONAL Kampus Ketintang, Surabaya, 60231 UNIVERSITAS NEGERI SURABAYA Telepon/Faksimile: +231 8293484 PROGRAM PASCA SARJANA Email: [email protected] UNDERSTANDING REFERRING EXPRESSION By Tantri Sundari I. Introduction One major goal of communication is both speaker and l...

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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.

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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

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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):



(where the speaker is referring to an individual operation), but not in:

They performed a cholecystectomy this morning.

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). 4

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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 6

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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

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Jones doesn‘t believe his wife is a sociopath.

Because of what Jones knows, we are not as...