Rodica Albu, Semantics (and pragmatics)

6. ON REFERENGE. From Semantics to Pragmatics

0. Preliminaries

Languaga, like any semiotic sysfem, can be analysed into three interdepdent subsysfems by three didinct,
tttough inevitably interdependert, branches of inquiry. The following labels are valid far both the subsy$em and the
study af that subsystem:
a. syntax - a formalsystem; its study deals with formal relations between signs; its rules account forthe
actions of grammdicalness;
b. semantics - assigns meaning to formal expressions; the study of relations between signs and the
outside world; its rules account forthe notion of truth (i.e., correct reference of an expression);
c. pragmatics - relations between linguistic signs and the subjects using them or, in Charles Monis's
terms, 'the relation of signs to interpreters" {1938); explains the meaning of formal expressions depending
on the situations in which speakers use them; its rules account for the notion of felicity or adequacy (i.e.,
roughly speaking, successful reference).
*
The term 'reference' has long been used, with or without a well-established meaning, by linguists, philosophers,
logicians, as well as by the man-in-the-street. Although there is no general agreement on a unique definition of
reference, we may start by saying, together with John Lyons, that 'it has to do with the relationship which holds
between an expression and what that expression stands for one particular occasion of its utterance" (Lyons, 1977:
174).

{. Refercnce in traditional semantics

r A simplistic view of reference relates words and things direc*ly.
o A more sophisticated vievv is one that relates the linguislic expressions to the extralinguistic world through
the mediation of mental concepts.

One day, while lwas playing with my doll, Miss Sullivan put my big doll into my lap also, spelled U-o-l-l'
and tried to make me undersland that 'd-o-l-l' applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over
the words'm-u-g' and \u-a-t-e-f. Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that'm-u-g' is mug and that
\u-a-t-e-f is water, but I persisled in confounding the two.
(Helen Keller, The Story of My Life, Chapter lV)

(Rememberthe semiotictriangle name+tncept-referent or symbol-thougtrt-obje@

The namel -conrept relation is sometimes conventionally called lhe meaning or specific sense of the word. The
con*pt+eferent relation is called lhe referene of the word. The dotted line indicates that the relationship between
the symbol (name/wordlsound sequence orwhatever other label(s)) and the referent is not causal but mediated.

2. Basic terminological problems

a. Sense, reference and dictionary definitions. A distinction is usually made between reference, which deals
with relations between'language and the non-linguistic world of experience, and sense, which deals with relations
within language, that is, with intra-linguistic relations. The dictionary is usually concemed with sense relations, with
relating words to wods, more than once in an unsystematic way.

It could be agued, though, that the ultimate aim of a dictionary is to supply the user with referential
meaning, and that it does so by relating a word wfose meaning is unknown to a word, or words, whose
meaning is already understood (Palmer, 1g76: 31).2

' Other expressions used for the 'name' positio n are: word, texicat item, lexical expression, linguistb expression, saund
leguence, acoustic image... At this point it would be useful to read 'Definitions of Meaning' in Ch(oran 1973, pp. 28-38.
2
To discriminate sense from reference and to answer the question whether or not identical reference is a condition of
synonymy, it is still most convenient to discuss Frege's classic example (1892; see also Lyons 1g68, p. 427):
The Morning Sfarrb fie Evening Star.
The two expressions refer to the same pland, Venus, so they have the same reference. Yet, they are not synonymous, i.e.,
they do not have the same sense. lf they had, the statement above would be pleonastic. As it is, 'The Morning Sta/ and 'The
Evening Stai have a different sense: Venus seen in the morning and Venus seen in the evening, with varied literary and
cultural connotations. (One might argue that the reference itself is not exactly the same if the relafue position of Venus to Earth