particular occasion of utterance, inde

U N I T   4
Referring expressions
39
examples show is that, in our terms, whether an expression is a referring
expression is heavily dependent on linguistic context and on circumstances of
utterance.
We turn now to the case of de
finite noun phrases.
Practice Are the following referring expressions? (Imagine normal circumstances for
the utterances.)
(1) John in ‘John is my best friend’
Yes / No
(2) he in ‘He’s a very polite man’, said by a husband to his 
wife in a conversation about their bank manager
Yes / No
(3) it in ‘It’s sinking!’ used in a conversation about a battleship 
which has just been attacked
Yes / No
(4) the man who shot Abraham Lincoln in ‘The man who shot 
Abraham Lincoln was an unemployed actor’
Yes / No
Feedback
(1) Yes (2) Yes (3) Yes (4) Yes
Comment These straightforward examples show how de
finite noun phrases of various
kinds, proper names (e.g. John), personal pronouns (e.g. he, it), and longer
descriptive expressions (as in question (4)) can all be used as referring
expressions. Indeed, de
finite noun phrases such as these most frequently are
used as referring expressions. But, even with de
finite noun phrases, there are
examples in which they are not (or not clearly) referring expressions.
Practice Are the following expressions referring expressions?
(1) he in ‘If anyone ever marries Nancy, he’s in for a bad time’
(meaning that whoever marries Nancy is in for a bad time)
Yes / No
(2) it in ‘Every man who owns a donkey beats it’
Yes / No
(3) the person who did this in ‘The person who did this 
must be insane’, spoken by someone on discovering a 
brutally mutilated corpse, where the speaker has no 
idea who committed the crime
Yes / No
(4) Smith’s murderer in ‘Smith’s murderer must be insane’, uttered 
in circumstances like the above, where the corpse is Smith’s
Yes / No
Feedback
(1) No, the speaker has no particular individual in mind as Nancy’s 
possible future husband. (2) No, it doesn’t refer to any particular donkey
here. (3) Not such a clear case, but it could be argued that the person who
did this is not a referring expression in this example. (4) Similarly, an
unclear case, but again it could be argued that Smith’s murderer is not a
referring expression here.

PA RT  T WO
From reference . . .
40
Comment Such examples show that the notion ‘referring expression’ is not always easy
to apply. Part of the di
fficulty encountered in the last two examples stems
from the fact that it is not clear what we mean when we say that a speaker
must have a particular individual in mind in order to refer. We shall not try
to resolve this issue here. But note that in the case of de
finite noun phrases
also, the question of whether they are used as referring expressions is very
much dependent on the context and circumstances of use.
We now move to a di
fferent topic, starting with consideration of definite
noun phrases, but linking eventually with some of the previous examples
involving inde
finite noun phrases.
Practice (1) Would the phrase the President of the United States used in a
conversation about American politics in 2007 have the same 
referent as the expression the Leader of the Republican Party
in the same conversation?

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