Rajarata
University of Sri Lanka
Department of Languages
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Online Lectures
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Year and
Semester
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Year-
Semester-1
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Subject
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Syntax and
Semantics-16
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Subject
Code
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ENGL2112
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Course
Unit
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Reference and Sense
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Date
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06.06.2020
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Time
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Theory
(9.00 am-11.00 am) Practical (2.30
pm-4.30 pm)
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Lecturer
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D.N.
Aloysius
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Theory
Hours
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02
Total No of Hours: 16
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Practical
Hours
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02
Total No of Hours: 16
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Reference and Sense
Reference refers to what an expression
refers to in the real world. For example, Wikibooks refers to the website where you can find this
book. Barack Obama refers
to the first black president of the United States. In the sentence Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia, is an
intelligent man, who refers
to Jimmy Wales.
Constant reference occurs when an expression
always refers to the same thing, regardless of context. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea usually
has constant reference, as does Noam
Chomsky. Smith, Mary and the dog do not have constant
reference.
Sense is different from reference in
that sense does not take care of objects in the real world. When you look in a
dictionary, most of the definitions you get tell you the senses of the words.
Consider this extract from Wiktionary's entry on plane:
1. An airplane; an aeroplane.
2. A level or flat surface.
3. A level of existence or development.
None of these are related to actual
aeroplanes or surfaces in the real world. They are senses.
Sometimes, a sentence is
syntactically correct, but semantically meaningless. Let's revisit Chomsky's
example:
(1a) Colourless green ideas sleep
furiously.
Obviously, this sentence doesn't
make sense to us at all. We can often determine what words can fit into a
sentence by using semantic features. Consider this example:
(1b) The N[+living] was killed.
This would prevent us from saying
'the homework was killed' or 'the building was killed'.
Practical:
Explain the terms, reference and sense.
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