Semantics: Reference and Sense

1. Department of English Language and Literature
Major: English Language and Literature
Semantics Session 4 Reference and Sense
Dr. Badriya Al Mamari
Academic year 2021/2022

2. There are two ways of talking about
the meaning of words and other expressions:
Reference and Sense

3. Reference deals with the relationship between the linguistic
elements, words, sentences, etc., and the non-linguistic world
of experience.
Sense relates to the complex system of relationships that hold
between the linguistic elements themselves (mostly the
words); it is concerned only with intralinguistic relations.

5. A.Reference:
By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (including
persons) are being talked about.
Example: My son is in the beech tree.
 (My son) is in (the beech tree).
 (Referent: identifies a person) (Referent: identifies a thing)

6. A Referent of a part of language: things or people exist in the world
even something or someone that does not exist, but we believe they
are available.

7. In linguistics, the triangle of reference is a model
for explaining how words convey meaning

8. Ogden and Richards Model (Semiotics)
One fairly well-known semiotic triangle is that of Ogden and
Richards, in which the terms used are:
A. ‘sign / symbol’,
B.’sense / thought or reference' and
C.'referent’
(Ogden & Richards 1923, 14).

9. Example:
indicates the relationship among a thought, symbol, and
referent and highlights the indirect relationship between
the symbol and referent (Ogden & Richards, 1932).

10.  So we have 2 things in a reference:
 the English expression (part of language)
 thing person (part of the world)
(see slide 4)

11. There are two types of Reference:
1.Variable Reference
2.Constant Reference
Variable Reference Constant Reference
a. One word a. One word
b. Many expressions b. Many expressions
c. Refer to different type of that object c. Refer to the same thing

12. Variable Reference: ( Book)
The word book has a real object or appearance in the
world in different forms ( single book, pile of books,
literature, fiction, comic, ….etc).

13. Example: Constant Reference. (America):
America has a real appearance and also can be defined in other
words or expressions.

14. Types of Reference properties:
1.A part of a language (an expression) may have more than one referent.
Ex.1 “The president of the USA”:
in 1997 is George W. Bush.
in 2006 is Bill Clinton.
in 2009 is Obama.
in 2015 is Trumph
Ex.2 “Planet Venus”
-the morning star
-the evening star

15.  2. A part of a language (an expression) may have a specific referent that is
specified by time or place.
 Ex: “Your youngest brother”- Khalid

16.  3. Two parts of a language (two expressions) may refer to the same
referent.
 ex. The Morning Star / The evening star = Planet Venus
 King of Saudi Arabia/ The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques= King
Sulman Bin AbdulAziz
 My aunt/ My mother’s sister= Ameera

17.  4. Some parts of a language (expressions) have no reference.
 ex. Function words (determiners, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions)
as “and”, “ before” , “with” , “it”….etc.

18.  5. Some parts of a language (expressions) have an imaginary
referent.
 ex. Afreet, Jin, Unicorn, Santa Claus, Zeus ( god of sky and thunder),
..etc

19. Types of referring expressions
 1. Proper names : Andrew, Mark, Ali, Khalid….etc.
 2. Pronouns: I , we, …etc.
 3. Definite descriptions: The President of USA, The Queen of England,
The Head of department, The girl in the corner, The Topic of next
week’s class
 4.Noun phrases: an English poet, some elephants, a cup of tea, tea

20. B.Sense
 Sense deals with relationships inside the language.
 Sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with
other expressions in the language.
 One of the semantic relationships is “sameness of meaning in words, phrases
and sentences"
 More than one word can have the same sense.

21.  ex. An important sense relationship between these pairs is: (Synonymy)
pretty/ beautiful
giant/ huge
tall/ long
I (almostnearly) fell over.
school école
sidewalk (A.E)------- pavement (B.E)

22. Example of sense
1.in word-form
“Guilt”
 Guilt, Blame, feeling of shame, Guiltiness, the fact that somebody has done
something illegal, blame or responsibility for wrongdoing.

23.  2. in a phrase or a sentence
 “A prisoner escaped from jail yesterday”.
A prisoner ran away from the jail yesterday.
A prisoner got free from the jail yesterday.

24. 3.More than one expressionsentence can have the same sense :
 Rupert fook Off his jacket = Rupert foo0kK his jacket off.
4. the same word can have more than one sense :
 - | have an account at the bank of Muscat.
 - we steered the raft to the other bank of river.
5.alike sentences have different sense :
 - the chicken is ready to eat.
 - the chicken is ready to be eaten.
 - the chicken is ready to eat something.

25. The relationship between sense and reference
 - the referent of an expression is often a thing or person in the world.
 -the Sense of an expression is not a thing at all it is an abstraction that
can be entertained in the mind of a language user.
 -it's difficult to say what sort of entity the sense of an expression is.
 -It is useful to think of sense as that is a part of meaning of an expression
that is left over when reference is factored out.
 It's much easier to say whether or not two expressions have the same
sense.

26. Reference:
• Hurford, J., Heasley, B. & Smith, M. B. (2007) Semantics a
Coursebook, (2nd) edition). Cambridge University Press.