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Walaa jehad abu saqer 220102739
Walaa jehad abu saqer220102739
Reference and Referring Expressions
“Words themselves do not refer to anything, people refer”
Reference is an act in which a speaker, or writer, uses linguistic forms to enable a listener, or reader, to identify something. These linguistic forms are called referring expressions.
They can be:
(a) proper nouns:
‘Brasília’ ‘Bill Clinton’
They can be:
(b ) ) (noun phrases definite:
‘The city’ ‘The ex-president’
(c ) ) (noun phrases indefinite:
‘A place ’ ‘A man’
They can be:
(d )pronouns:
‘It’ ‘He, him’
Referring expression is any expression used in an
utterance to refer to something or someone, namely used with particular referent in the mind of the speaker.
For example, when I say,“Alice did a presentation last
lecture” “There is no Alice in this class”
Intension and Extension
IntensionIs the set of properties shared by
all members of the extension.
It indicates the internal content of a term or concept that constitutes its formal definition
Intension is unchangeable.
the intension of “ship” as a substantive is “vehicle for conveyance on water”
the intension of “dog” must be an animal that can bark . An image of the word dog would have to be general enough to include the different sizes, shapes, and colors, yet still exclude foxes and wolves.
ExtensionIt is the set of entities which it
denotes.
indicates its range of applicability by naming the particular objects that it denotes.
Extension is changeable
ships
passenger
ships
battleships
cargo ships
sailing ships
Ships
dogs
collies
dachshunds
mongrels
Dalmatians
dogs
prototypeIt is an object or referent that is
considered typical of the whole set.
Culturally and socially dependent.
• Prototypes can vary across populations.
If you encounter to the lexeme bird in isolation and immediately think of robin rather than others, that bird ,for you the prototype of all birds.
But not everybody is likely to have the same prototype for a particular set.
Some different kinds of referents:Unique and non-unique referents
Concert and abstract referents
Countable and non-countable referents
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