Table of Contents

Table of Contents..............................................................................................................i
PREFACE.........................................................................................................................1
CHAPTER I.....................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................2
A. Background of the Problem.....................................................................................2
B. Identification of the Problem...................................................................................3
C. Objective of the Study..............................................................................................3
CHAPTER II....................................................................................................................4
DISCUSSION...................................................................................................................4
A. Reference and Inference..........................................................................................4
B. Referential and Attributive Uses.............................................................................5
C. Names and Referents...............................................................................................7
D. The Role of Co-Text.................................................................................................8
E. Anaphoric Reference..............................................................................................10
CHAPTER III................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................12

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 PREFACE

The writer wants to thank to Almighty God because of His bless and

grace, he can finish this paper. This paper be entitled ”REFERENCE AND

INFERENCE”. The writer wrote it to fulfill the midterm assignment of Semantic

and Pragmatic

The author certainly realizes that this paper is far from perfect and there

are still many errors and shortcomings in it. For this reason, the author expects

criticism and suggestions from readers for this paper, so that this paper can later

become a better paper. Thus, and if there are many mistakes in this paper the

author apologizes profusely. I hope this paper can be useful. thanks.

Tangerang, April 2019

Compiler

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Problem

Communication is essential for everyone to express feelings, exchange

information, delivering massages and many other functions of it. During the act of

communication human use language, containing sentences, words and smaller

units which also contribute to construct meaning. One distinctive character of

human language is the act of describing about something outside which been

known as ‘aboutness’ phenomenon (Hocket & Attman, 1968). Human don’t

only talk about something visible around them, but also abstract concept. Since

the things which human talk about is outside, they need to describe them using

words, phrases or sentences. Thus, the concept of ‘reference and inference’ is

proclaimed and become interesting issue to be explored by linguists.

Speaker and listener are cooperating to reach same understanding during

their act of communication, decoding expressions, word choices and links

(between one word to others) which been utilized to describe something. And the

cooperative understanding will only happen when they both successfully gain

mutual interpretation of what is expressed. Word itself doesn’t originally refer to

something, but human do. One utilized word will not always represent a

denotative meaning of it since humans’ opinion takes significant role of what

actually being referred, a meaning behind the meaning.

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 In this paper, we will try to briefly expose the concept of reference

and inference in English pragmatics by reviewing some literatures, exploring

and discussing about its features and mentioning adequate examples to support

better understanding for everyone who learn.

B. Identification of the Problem

1. Reference and inference?

2. What is Referential and attributive uses?

3. What is the role of co-text?

4. What is Anaphoric reference?

C. Objective of the Study

1. Understand meaning of Reference and inference

2. Understand meaning of Referential and attributive uses

3. To know the role of co-text

4. To understand meaning of Anaphoric reference

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 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Reference and Inference

We might best think of reference as an act in which a speaker, or writer,

uses linguistic forms to enable a listener, or reader, to identify something. hose

linguistic forms are referring expressions, which can be proper nouns (for

example, 'Shakespeare', 'Cathy Revuelto', 'Hawaii'), noun phrases which are

definite (for example, 'the author', 'the singer', 'the island'), or indefinite (for

example, 'a man', 'a woman', 'a beautiful place'), and pronouns (for example, 'he',

'her', 'it', 'them'). 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. 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. It is not unusual for people to want to refer to some entity or person

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without knowing exactly which 'name' would be the best word to use. We can

even use vague expressions (for example, 'the blue thing', 'that icky stuff, 'ol'

what's his name', 'the thingamajig'), relying on the listener's ability to infer what

referent we have in mind. Speakers even invent names. There was one man who

delivered packages to our office whose 'real' name I didn't know, but whose

identity I could infer when the secretary referred to him as in [i].

[i] Mister Aftershave is late today.

The example in [i] may serve to illustrate that reference is not based on an

objectively correct (versus incorrect) naming, but on some locally successful

(versus unsuccessful) choice of expression. We might also note from example [i]

that successful reference is necessarily collaborative, with both the speaker and

the listener having a role in thinking about what the other has in mind

B. 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 as in [2a.], but they can also be used to describe entities

that are assumed to exist, but are unknown, as in [2b.], or entities that, as far as we

know, don't exist [2.C.].

[2] 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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 The expression in [2b.], 'a woman with lots of money', can designate an

entity that is known to the speaker only in terms of its 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

[2b.], 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 phrases. During a

news report on a mysterious death, the reporter may say [3] 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. 'whoever did the killing'), based on

the speaker's assumption that a referent must exist. [

3 ] 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, then uttering the

sentence in [3] 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're talking about, even when the entity or

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individual described may not exist, as in [2c.]. Some other famous members of

that group are the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.

C. Names and Referents

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. It

is our daily experience of the successful operation of this convention that may

cause us to assume that referring expressions can only designate very specific

entities. This assumption may lead us to think that a name or proper noun like

'Shakespeare' can only be used to identify one specific person, and an expression

containing a common noun, such as 'the cheese sandwich', can only be used to

identify a specific thing. This belief is mistaken. A truly pragmatic view of

reference allows us to see how a person can be identified via the expression, 'the

cheese sandwich', and a thing can be identified via the name, 'Shakespeare'

For example, it would not be strange for one student to ask another the

question in [4a.] and receive the reply in [4b.].

[4] a. Can I borrow your Shakespeare? b. Yeah, it's over there on the table.

Given the context just created, the intended referent and the inferred

referent would not be a person, but probably a book (notice the pronoun 'it').

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 There appears to be a pragmatic connection between proper names and

objects that will be conventionally associated, within a socioculturally 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 nature of reference interpretation just described is also what allows

readers to make sense of newspaper headlines using names of countries, as

exemplified in [8a.] where the referent is to be understood as a soccer team, not as

a government, and in [8b.] where it is to be understood as a government, not as a

soccer team.

[8] a. Brazil wins World Cup.

b. Japan wins first round of trade talks.

D. The Role of Co-Text

The co-text clearly limits the range of possible interpretations we might

have for a word like 'Brazil'. It is consequently misleading to think of reference

being understood solely in terms of our ability to identify referents via the

referring expression. The referring expression actually provides a range of

reference, that is, a number of possible referents. Returning to a previous example,

we can show that, while the phrase 'the cheese sandwich' stays the same, the

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different co-texts in [9a.] and [9b.] lead to a different type of interpretation in each

ct;se (i.e. 'food' in [9a.] and 'person' in [9b.]).

[9J a. The cheese sandwich is made with white bread,

b. The cheese sandwich left without paying.

Of course, 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. The physical context of a restaurant, and perhaps even the

speech conventions of those who work there, may be crucial to the interpretation

of [9b.]. Similarly, it is useful to know that a hospital is the context for [ioa.], a

dentist's office for [iob.], and a hotel reception for [IOC.].

[10] a. The heart-attack mustn't be moved.

b. Your ten-thirty just cancelled.

c. A couple of rooms have complained about the heat.

The examples in [10] provide some support for an analysis of reference

that depends on local context and the local knowledge of the participants. It may

crucially depend on familiarity with the local socio-cultural conventions as the

basis for inference (for example, if a person is in a hospital with an illness, then he

or she can be identified by nurses via the name of the illness). These conventions

may differ substantially from one social group to another and may be marked

differently from one language to another. Reference, then, is not simply a

relationship between the meaning of a word or phrase and an object or person in

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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.

E. Anaphoric Reference

In English, initial reference, or introductory mention, is often indefinite ('a

man', 'a woman', 'a cat'). In [n] the definite noun phrases ('the man', 'the cat', 'the

woman') and the pronouns ('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

some change or effect is described, the anaphoric reference must be interpreted

differently. In example [12], from a recipe, 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'

[12] Peel and slice six potatoes. Put them in cold salted water. There is

also a reversal of the antecedent-anaphor pattern sometimes found at the

beginning of stories, as in example [13].

[13] I turned the corner and almost stepped on it. There was a large snake

in the middle of the path.

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 There is a range of expressions which are used for anaphoric reference in

English. The most typical forms are pronouns, such as 'it' in [14a.], but definite

noun phrases are also used, for example, 'the slices' in [14b.].

[14] a. Peel an onion and slice it.

b. Drop the slices into hot oil.

c. Cook for three minutes.

Note that the pronoun 'it' is used first and is difficult to interpret until the

full noun phrase is presented in the next line. This pattern is technically known as

cataphora, and is much less common than anaphora.

When the interpretation requires us to identify an entity, as in 'Cook (?) for

three minutes', in [14c], and no linguistic expression is present, it is called zero

anaphora, or ellipsis. The use of zero anaphora as a means of maintaining

reference clearly creates an expectation that the listener will be able to infer who

or what the speaker intends to identify. It is also another obvious case of more

being communicated than is said.

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 CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

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

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