Yule: “Words themselves do not refer to anything, people refer”

Reference and InferenceReference and Inference

Pragmatics : Sheet 3

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Female volunteers are needed to participate in a graduation Project

In discussing deixis, we assumed that the use of words to refer to people and things was a simple matter. However, words themselves don't refer to anything. People refer.

We often assume that the words we use to identify things are in some direct relationship to those things. It's not as simple as that. We may not actually know someone's name, but that doesn't prevent us from referring to the person

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Linguistic forms are referring expressions.

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The choice of one type of referring expression rather than another seems to be based, to a large extent, on what the speaker assumes the listener already knows.

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Proper nouns, definite and indefinite phrases

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(a) proper nouns:

‘Misurata’ ‘Mustafa Abdul Jalil’

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(b) noun phrases (definite):

‘The city’ ‘The Former NTC President’

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(c) noun phrases (indefinite):

‘A place’ ‘A man’

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They can be:

(d) pronouns:

‘It’ ‘He, him’

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A brand name for cars can obviously be used for a person.

Similarly, in a restaurant, one waiter can ask another

Where's the fresh salad sitting? and receive the reply He's

sitting by the door.

As an English student, you might ask someone can I look at

your Chomsky ? and get the response Sure, it's on the shelf

over there.

These examples make it clear that we can use names

associated with things (salad) to refer to people and names of

people (Chomsky) to refer to things. 4th November, 2013

For successful referencereference to occur, we must also recognize the role of

inference.inference.

What are inferences?What are inferences?

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Inferring is connecting prior knowledge to text based information to create meaning beyond what is directly stated.

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An inference is any additional information used by the

listener to connect what is said to what must be

meant. In the last example, the listener has to infer

that the name of the writer of a book can be used to

identify a book by that writer. Similar types of

inferences are necessary to understand someone who

says that Picasso is in the museum or We saw

Shakespeare in London or I enjoy listening to Mozart.

The role of inference in communication is to allow the listener to  identify correctly which particular entity the speaker is referring to. We can even use vague expressions relying on the listener’s ability to infer what is the referent that we have in mind.

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Listeners make inferencesinferences about what is said in order to arrive at

an interpretation of the speaker’s intended meaning. The

choice of one type of referring expression rather than another seems to be based on what the speaker assumes the listener

already knows.4th November, 2013

Because there is no direct relationship between entities and

words, the listener’s task is to infer which entity the speaker intends to identify by using a

particular expression:“Mister Aftershave is late today”

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1) Reference ---- the act by which a speaker or writer uses language to enable a hearer or reader to identify something.

2) Inference ---- any additional information used by the hearer to connect what is said to what must be meant.

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"In reference there is a basic collaboration at work:

‘intention-to-identify’ and

'recognition-of-intention’.

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Collaboration

This process needs 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.

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When we establish a referent (Can I borrow your book?) and subsequently refer to the same object (Yeah, it's on the table), we have a particular kind of referential relationship between book and it. The second (and any subsequent) referring expression is an example of anaphora and the first mention is called the antecedent. Thus, book is the antecedent and it is the anaphoric expression.

Anaphora can be defined as subsequent reference to an already introduced entity.Most1y we use anaphora in texts to maintain reference. As with other types of reference, the connection between referent and anaphora may not always be direct.

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In technical terms, the second or subsequent expression is the anaphor anaphor

and the initial is the antecedentantecedent:

a man a man the man the man he he

a woman a woman the woman the woman sheshe

he + she he + she they they

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Anaphoric reference

After the initial introduction of some entity, speakers will use various expressions to maintain reference:

“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”

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is used to first insert an expression or word that co-refers with a later expression in the discourse

I almost stepped on it. There was a snake in the middle of the path.

Reference is clearly tied to the speaker’s goals and  beliefs in the use of language.

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Yule (p.18) "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, or entities that, as far as  we know, do not exist"

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Examples: (p:18, 19)

 a) There's a man waiting for you.  b) He wants to marry a woman with lots of money.  c) We'd love to find a nine-foot-tall basketball player

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Attributive use / referential use

a man waiting for youa woman with lots of moneya nine-foot-tall basketball player

This is sometimes called an attributive use,  meaning 'whoever/whatever fits the  description'. It would be distinct from a referential use: a specific person is referred to, although his/her name or some other description is not used.

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Yule:“Our ability to identify intended referentshas actually depended on more than ourunderstanding of the referring expression". It has been aided by the linguistic material, or co-text,accompanying the referring expression. The referringexpression actually provides a range of reference, thatis, a number of possible referents. In the examplesbelow, the referring expression 'cheese sandwich‘provides a number of possible referents. However, thedifferent co-texts lead to a different type ofinterpretation in each case.

a) Cheese sandwich is made with white bread. b) The cheese sandwich left without paying.

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...won the match

Yule: “The co-text is just a linguistic part of the environment in which a referring expression is used. The physical environment, or context, is perhaps more easily recognized as having a powerful impact on how referring expressions are to be interpreted. Reference, then, is not simply a relationship between the meaning of a  word or phrase and an object or person in the world. It is a social act, in which the speaker assumes that the word or phrase chosen to  identify an object or  person will be interpreted as the speaker intended”.

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Example:

Peel and slice six potatoes. Put them in cold salted water

The initial referring expression 'six potatoes' identifies something different from the anaphoric pronoun 'them', which must be interpreted as 'the six peeled and sliced potatoes”.

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When the interpretation requires us to identify an entity, and no linguistic expression is presented, it is called zero anaphora, or ellipsis.

“Peel an onion and slice it. Drop the slices into hot oil. Cook for three minutes.”

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Zero anaphora or ellipsis

The use of zero anaphora clearly creates an expectation that the listener will be able to infer who or what the speaker intends to identify:

1. Peel an onion and slice it.

2. Drop the slices into hot oil.

3. Cook for three minutes.

= ‘slices’, ‘them’.

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Yule: "the key to making sense of reference is that  pragmatic process whereby speakers select linguistic expressions with the intention of identifying certain entities and with the assumption that listeners will collaborate and interpret those expressions as the speaker intended".

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Yule: “Successful reference means that an intention was recognized, via inference, indicating a kind of shared knowledge and hence social connection”

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Successful reference is necessarily collaborative (‘shared knowledge’). It

allows us to make sense of the following sentences:

“Picasso’s on the far wall”

“My Rolling Stones is missing”

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Successful reference means that an intention was recognized, via inference, indicating a kind of shared knowledge

and hence social connection.

Don’t forget:

Pragmatics is the study of how moremore gets communicated than is said.

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Consider the following complaint: I was waiting for the bus, but he just drove by without stopping. Notice that the antecedent is bus and the anaphoric expression is he. We would normally expect it to be used for a bus. Obviously there is an inference involved here: if someone is talking about a bus in motion, assume that there is a driver. That assumed driver is the inferred referent for he. The term 'inference' has been used here to describe what the listener (or reader) does. When we talk about an assumption made by the speaker (or writer), we usually talk about a 'presupposition'.

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When a speaker uses referring expressions like this, he or Shakespeare, in normal circumstances, she is working with an assumption that the hearer knows which referent is intended. In a more general way, speakers continually design their linguistic messages on the basis of assumptions about what their hearers already know. These assumptions may be mistaken, of course, but they underlie much of what we say in the everyday use of language.

What a speaker assumes is true or is known by the hearer can be described as a presupposition

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If someone tells you Your brother is waiting outside for you, there is an obvious presupposition that you have a brother. If you are asked Why did you arrive late? there is a presupposition that you did arrive late. And if you are asked the following question, there are at least two presuppositions involved: When did you stop smoking cigars? In asking this question, the speaker presupposes that you used to smoke cigars? and that you no longer do so. Questions like this, with built-in presuppositions, are very useful devices for interrogators or trial lawyers. If the defendant is asked by the prosecutor Okay, Mr. Smith, how fast were you going when you ran the red light?, there is a presupposition that Mr. Smith did, in fact, run the red light.

If he simply answers the How fast part of the question, by giving a speed, he is behaving as if the presupposition is correct

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One of the tests used to check for the presuppositions underlying sentences involves negating a sentence with a particular presupposition and considering whether the presupposition remains true. Take the sentence My car is a wreck. Now take the negative version of this sentence: My car is not a wreck. Notice that, although these two sentences have opposite meanings, the underlying presupposition, I have a car, remains true in both. This is called the constancy under negation test for presupposition. If someone says I used to regret marrying him, but I don't regret marrying him now, the presupposition (I married him) remains constant even though the verb regret changes from being affirmative to being negative.

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What kind of inference is involved in interpreting these utterances:

(a) Professor: Bring your Plato to class tomorrow.

(b) Nurse: The broken leg in room 5 wants to talk to the doctor.

What are the anaphoric expressions in: Dr. Dang gave Mary some medicine

after she asked him for it.

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