referent
IPA: rˈɛfɝʌnt
noun
- (semantics) The specific entity in the world that a word or phrase identifies or denotes.
- That which is referenced.
Advertisement
Examples of "referent" in Sentences
- Parsing the referent is a part of that meaning making.
- Linguistically this shift of meaning is associated with what is called the referent, since a new context often means fresh referents.
- Her hand would be trembling on the highball glass and she'd have a nervous headache where I am robust and refreshed, but the referent is a useful one.
- The hope is that, for a second person, that warning cry would produce the same referent, in other words, trigger the alarming thought “A cheetah is coming!”
- Hammers for Ambres does seem like a pretty easy shift, especially when the referent is a victorious king - Charles Martel is not parallel, but is suggestive.
- In terms of "the self," in other words, the speaker's dissolution into the referent is really her expansion from an ego to a collective (lore-ridden, nature-ridden) self.
- In a judgment the thinker acknowledges the truth of the proposition considered, and thereby advances from the proposition to the acknowledgment that the referent is the truth value The True.
- Though these systems are described as communication, the central theoretical questions are whether the communicative utterances are referential and whether the utterers are mentally representing the referent, that is, whether the utterance is meaningful from the perspective of conspecifics.
- At first glance, these statements appear to say different things, but if ˜Hesperus™ and ˜Phosphorus™ contribute no descriptive information (like is a morning star or is an evening star) to the proposition expressed by either sentence, but only the referent, which is the same for each term, then the sentences have to say the same thing despite first appearances.
- We have already seen this use generalised to descriptive titles of books, paintings etc (Reclining Nude; Portrait of a Lady …) Of proper nouns, Halliday has this to say “With proper nouns [the referent] is defined experientially: there exists only one, at least in the relevant body of experience … This means that typically there is no further specification … Proper names usually occur without any other elements of the nominal group”.
Advertisement
Advertisement