Referential Theory

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Theories of Meaning

REFERENTIAL


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Referential Theory of Meaning - isthat the meaning of a term is the

things in the world it refers to.

Referential Theory - is confounded

by terms that have the samereferent but different meaning, suchas 'morning star' and 'evening star'.

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Referential Theory

linguistic expressions have themeanings they do because they standfor things; what they mean is whatthey stand for.

words are like labels; they are

symbols that represent, designate,name, denote or refer to items in theworld:

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the name Adolf Hitler denotes (theperson) Hitler; the noun dog refers

to dogs, as do the French chien andthe German Hund.

The cat sat on the matrepresents some cats sitting onsome mat

The cats designating that cat,the mats designating the mat

sat on denoting the relation of

sitting-on.


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Some Problems in Referential

Theory of MeaningProblem 1. Not every word doesname or denote any actual

object/thing.

First,there are the names ofnonexistent items like Pegasus


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pronouns of quantification, as in

(1) I saw nobody.

But to what does nobody refer?


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Second, consider a simple subject-predicate sentence:

(2) Ralph is fat.


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Third, there are words thatgrammatically are nouns but do not,

intuitively, name either individualthings or kinds of things -- not evennonexistent things or abstract

items such as qualities.


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Fourth, many parts of speech otherthan nouns do not even seem to refer

to things of any sort or in any way atall: very, of, and, the, a,yes, and for that matter hey and

alas.


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Problem 2: According to the

Referential theory, a sentence is alist of names. But a mere list ofnames does not say anything.

(3) Fred Martha Irving Phyllis

cannot be used to assert anything,even if Martha or Irving is anabstract entity rather than a physicalobject.


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One might suppose that if the nameof an individual is concatenated with

the name of a quality, as in

(4) Ralph fatness,


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Problem 3: There are specificlinguistic phenomena that seem toshow that there is more to meaningthan reference.

In particular, co referringterms are often not synonymous; thatis, two terms can share theirreferent but differ in meaning

John Paul and the Pope, for example.


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Referential Theory

We mean what we say.

Word designates objects.

Facts has relation between objects.

Sentences capture the relations of

objectsA true statement corresponds tofacts.

Referential Theory

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