PART FOUR

SENSE AND REFERENCE

A. Sense

Sense is the more interesting part meaning. Sense refers to how we see an object or the amount
of information given about an object.

The classic example cited showing the distinction is the planet Venus. As a planet it has reference
arbitrarily given the name Venus. It is often called the morning star when seen in the morning,
and the evening star when seen in the evening. Thus, it has two senses, depending on the time of
day the object is seen. The planet itself is the referent; the morning star is one sense, the evening
star the other sense. It could have other senses.

In another example suppose John has two sons, Bill and Henry; one nephew, Pete; and one
grandson, Dave. When we refer to John as such, there is no sense. John is the arbitrary name
given to the referent. Consider the following phrases:

Bill's father

Henry's father

Pete's uncle

Dave's grandfather.

Each phrase either refers to John (X's father), or it may refer to John: Pete may have more than
one uncle and Dave has a second grandfather. In these cases the addressee does not know which
of the possible referents is the intended referent except when clear from the context.

The four phrases listed above represent a different sense of the intended referent. Virtually every
object can have several senses.
Names are referential. They have little or no sense. Lexical nouns each denote a sense. The term
father refers to anyone who is a male parent (another sense). As a rule all dictionary definitions
define sense, not reference. Only names in a dictionary reference and no sense. Technically, this
is not a definition.

Verbs, like nouns, have sense, not reference. Events rarely have names, though it is possible: the
Holocaust, World War II, the Big Bang, and so forth.

B. Reference

Reference is a part of meaning. Assume that there are three trees in a field. Each tree has a
unique reference. Each branch on each tree has a unique reference. And each leaf and the field
have a unique reference. There are two ways we can look at reference. The first is physical in
that each atom and electron has reference whether it can be seen or not. The second is perceptual:
this means how we see objects--do we see them as an object or not? We will take the latter
approach.

Reference also includes imaginary objects: unicorns, leprechauns, Santa Claus, Hades, elves,
eternal bliss, and so forth. This would also include objects which currently do not exist but could
exist: a King of France, dinosaurs, a five-cent ice-cream cone, and so forth.

Knowing the meaning of certain noun phrase means knowing how to discover what objects the
noun phrases refer to. For example the sentence:
The mason put the red brick on the wall
Knowing the meaning of the noun phrase “the red brick” enables us to identity the object. A
blind folded person would also comprehend the meaning. The object “pointed to” in such a noun
phrase is called its referent, and the noun phrase is said to have reference.
For many noun phrase there is more to meaning than just reference. For example, the noun
phrase “the red brick and the first brick from the right may refer to the same object, that is, may
be conferential. Nevertheless, we would be reluctant to say the two expressions have the same
meaning because they have the same reference. Same additional meaning is present. It is often
termed sense. Thus a noun phrase may have sense and reference, which together comprise its
meaning. Knowing the sense of noun phrase allows you to identity its referent. Sometimes the
term extension is used for reference, and intension for sense. Certain proper names appear to
have only reference.
In fact, there is very little constancy of reference in language. In every day discourse almost all
of the fixing of reference comes from the context in which expressions are used. Two different
expressions can have the same referent. The classic example is the morning star and the evening
star, both of which normally refer to the planet Venus.
To turn from reference to sense, the sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic
relationships with other expression in the language. The first of these semantic relationships that
we will mention is sameness of meaning, an intuitive concept when we will illustrate by
example. We will deal the sense of words in context.