Department:- English language and literature

Class:- Bs English part iv

Assignment:- Reference and inference

Submitted by:- Sarang Ali Memon

The term reference means, an act by which a speaker uses a word or words, to enable a listener
to identify someone or something for example;
I have a car and I love it. That means the speaker uses a specific word which is identified by
listener. These words are called referring expressions, they can be proper noun ( car), noun
phrase (a beautiful place), indefinites ( a tree) and pronouns ( He, she, it). The choice of referring
expression is based on what the speaker assumes the listener already knows, otherwise the
listener is not able to identify the entity behind words. In shared visual contexts, those pronouns
that function as deictic expressions, ( for example, ‘Take this’; ‘Look at him! ‘) may be sufficient
for successful reference, but where identification seems more difficult, more elaborate noun
phrases may be used ( for example, ‘Remember the old foreign guy with the funny hat?’).
Reference, then, is clearly tied to the speaker’s goals ( for example, to identify something)
and the speaker’s beliefs ( I.e. Can the listener be expected to know that particular something?)
in the use of language. For successful reference to occur, we must also recognize the role of
inference. Because there is no direct relationship between entities and words, the listener’s task
is to infer correctly which entity the speaker intends to identify by using a particular referring
expression.
Referential and attributive uses

It is important to recognize that not all referring expressions have identifiable physical referents.
Indefinite noun phrases can be used to identify a physically present entity but they can also be
used to describe entities that are assumed to exist, but are unknown, ( I.e. He wants to marry a
woman with lots of money). The expression ( ‘a woman with lots of money’), can designate an
entity that is known to the speaker only in terms of it’s descriptive properties. The word ‘a’ could
be replaced by ‘any’ in this case. This is sometimes called an attributive use, meaning whoever/
whatever fits the description. It would be distinct from a Referential use whereby I actually have
a person in mind and, instead of using her name or some other description, I choose the
expression in (I. e.), perhaps because I think you’d be more interested in hearing that this woman
has lots of money than that she has a name.
A similar distinction can be found with definite noun phrase. During a news report on a
mysterious death, the reporter may say without knowing for sure if there is a person who could
be the referent of the definite expression ‘the killer’, this would be an attributive use ( I. e. ‘Who
ever did the killing’), based on the speaker’s assumption that a referent must exist. For example
There was no sign of the killer. However, if a particular individual had been identified as having
done the killing and had been chased into a building, but escaped, than uttering the sentence in
( I. e.) about that individual would be a Referential use, based on the speaker’s knowledge that a
referent does exist.
The point of this distinction is that expressions themselves cannot be treated as having
reference ( as is often assumed in semantic treatments), but are, or are not, ‘invested’ with
Referential function in a context by a speaker or writer. Speakers often invite us to assume via
attributive uses, that we can identify what they are talking about.
Name and referent

The version of reference being presented here is one in which there is a basic ‘intention-to-
identify and a recognition-of-intention collaboration at work. This process need not only work
between one speaker and one listener; it appears to work, in terms of convention between all
members of a community who share a common language and culture that is, there is a
convention that certain referring expressions will be used to identify certain entities on a regular
basis. That means a name or proper noun can only be used to identify one specific person.
Example ( where is the cheese sandwich sitting?), this example may allow us to see more clearly
how Reference actually works. Look at the following sentences;
1. Picasso’s on the far wall.
2. My rolling stones is missing.
There appears to be a pragmatic connection between proper names and objects that will be
conventionally associated, within a socio-culturally defined community, with those names, using
a proper name Referentially to identify any such object invites the listener to make the expected
inference ( for example, from name of writer to book by writer) and thereby show himself or
herself to be a member of the same community as the speaker. In such cases, it is rather obvious
that more is being communicated than is said.
The role of co-text

In many of the preceding examples, our ability to identify intended referents has actually
depended on more than our understanding of the referring expression. It has been aided by the
linguistic material, or co-text accompanying the referring expression, for example a headline
appears in newspaper that ‘Brazil wins world cup’, here ‘Brazil’ was a referring expression and
‘wins world cup’ was part of co-text ( the rest of newspaper was more co-text). The co-text clearly
limits the range of possible interpretation we might have for a word like ‘Brazil’.
Anaphoric reference
The preceding discussion has been concerned with single acts of reference. In most of our talk
and writing, however, we have to keep track of who or what we are talking about for more than
one sentence at a time. After the initial introduction of some entity, speakers will use various
expressions to maintain reference, as in the example below.
 1. In the film, a man and a woman were trying to wash a cat. The man was holding the cat
while the woman poured water on it. He said something to her and they started laughing.
In English, initial reference, or introductory mention, is often indefinite (‘a man’, ‘a woman ‘, ‘a
cat’). In (1) the definite noun phrases (‘the man’, ‘the cat’, ‘the woman’) and the pronoun ( it, he,
her, they) are examples of subsequent reference to already introduced referents, generally
known as Anaphoric reference, or anaphora. In technical terms, the second or subsequent
expression is the anaphor and the initial expression is the antecedent. It is tempting to think of
Anaphoric reference as a process of continuing to identify exactly the same entity as denoted by
the antecedent. In many cases, that assumption makes little difference to the interpretation, but
in those cases where same change or effect is described, the Anaphoric reference must be
interpreted differently.

The pronoun ‘it’ is used first and is difficult to interpret until the full noun phrase is prescribed
in the next line. This pattern is technically known as cataphora, and is much less common than
anaphora. There is a range of expressions which are used for Anaphoric reference in English. The
most typical forms are pronouns, such as ‘it’ but definite noun phrases are also used, for example,
‘ the slices’ in ( drop the slices into hot oil).

Zero anaphora or ellipsis