REFERENTIALITY AND IDENTITY APRAGMATIC STUDY

Abstract

This paper aims at presenting a pragmatic study of reference. Reference is a kind of relation that holds between linguistic forms and what they stand for in the universe of discourse. Two types of reference are distinguished: exophoric and endophoric reference. The linguistic forms, which are used in the process of exophoric or endophoric reference, are called referring expressions. These referring expressions take various forms. They can be proper nouns, noun phrases that are either definite or indefinite, and pronouns. They have different identities. The identity of a referring expression is determined on the basis of the co-text in which they occur. Finally, successful reference can occur only in case we pay a special attention to the role of inference on the part of the listener.