Reference and the Concept of Identification: A Contrastive Study

Reference and the Concept of Identification: a Contrastive Study

Dr. Hazim Hakkush Al- Dilaimy

English Department

Ibri College of Education

Sultanate of Oman

1. Introduction

The concept of reference has received much attention by linguists and semanticists to be "the relation that holds between linguistic expressions and what they stand for in the world or universe of discourse". (Lyons, 1981: 220). Most of the literature on reference is devoted to such issues as how the notion of reference is manipulated to carry out the task of identification by means of various referring expressions which vary in the degree of the power of identification they supply about their referents.

The literature reveals that two camps have disputed over the issue of proper names when they are used as referring expressions. One camp believes that proper nouns have reference by means of the descriptive value they have a bout their referents. This view is mainly adopted by Frege and Russel. To Russel, proper names are used as "disguised definite descriptions" from a logical point of view whereas, to Frege a proper name has both sense and reference; the relation of denotation between a name and a referent is deeply rooted in the sense of that name.

The second camp, however, argues that the Russel-Frege view has been rejected on the grounds that names have reference without sense. A name is a word that solely denotes its referent; it does not connote anything. A name simply contributes to the truth conditions of presuppositions by indicating its referent. The reference of a name cannot be achieved by means of descriptions, as it is not essential to the definition of a name (Searle, 1980: 7).

The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical investigation of the semantic relations that hold between the concept of identification and the various uses of proper noun in English and Arabic. They are assumed to have varying degrees of affinity with both definite and indefinite articles to carry out the task of identification in the languages under study.

1.1 Proper Nouns in English

Proper nouns normally identify specific persons, places or things. They are regarded as the most explicit identifying expressions by looking at entities as individuals and not as members of classes. In English and most of European languages names are introduced by initial capital letters. They may cover names of ships, mountains, domestic pets, days of the week, months, seasons, tribes, countries, etc.

Theories of a number of philosophers and linguists have discussed the concept of proper names. The criterion that views these theories emerges from the fact that none of them is totally adequate or superior to others. Each emphasizes particular aspects that are adopted by one camp or ignored by another.

Discussing the description theory of proper nouns, Cresswell (1985: 152) agrees with Nute (1980) and Kribke (1980) who assume that there is an appropriate relation between the speaker, the thing named and the name itself. This relation gives an adequate description to the meaning of the name. However, description theories have been criticized on the grounds that nouns may not always be unique. Faucannier (1985: 153) argues that to Kribke (1980), a name is "rigid" since it can be used to refer to an individual or object in a particular utterance as long as the individual exists in a possible world. The name does not assign a property or properties to the individual or objects, but rather the identity of an object is viewed in terms of a necessary property. The noun phrase can be a proper noun used to denote an element in some space. Proper names are efficiently used as referring expressions. The concept of naming to Fauconnier (ibid: 20), is more essential to language than any other referring expressions. Definite descriptions, however, are utilized to refer to persons or places that we have not met or seen before.

1.2 Personal Names

The possession of a name plays an important part in the life of any human being; no one is born without being given a name that identifies its owner. Crystal (1989:112) highlights a universal property of names; people are named after professions, events, personal traits or animals. Children are also named after unpleasant notions to evict evil spirits by making them look ugly or undesirable.

The information about the use of names has been taken from different sources during historical periods of time such as national censuses; newspapers; birth announcements and specialists. It is interesting to note that the name used in a particular society are influenced by parents, near relatives, famous individuals, film stars, leaders, members of the royal family, festivals, religious ceremonies, etc. Crystal (1989: 112) mentions that mispronunciation of a name in one language may result in the danger of attributing unfavorable connotations as the names may overlap with words of irrelevant or tapoo meaning. The name of a dead person is normally a voided among the Masia of Africa. It has to be changed into another name when the possessor of that particular name dies. The name closely identifies its owner as it represents his bad or good reputation. Homer has attested the synonymy of name and fame that recurred in various Roman and Greek authors (Ulmann,1972: 72).

1.3 Geographical Places

Proper nouns indicating geographical places provide a unique source of information a bout their referents. They provide names for such places that give insight a bout the historical background of Society's beliefs and values. In America, for example, most place names reflect implications about Spanish, French, Dutch, Indian and English names that have been introduced by different groups of explorers. Crystal (1989: 114) introduces many interacting factors that determine the choice of the widespread types of derivation used in geographical names. Among these factors are the natural features such as rivers, hills and coastlines, e.g., Dover (water), Twin Forks, etc.; Religious Significance, saints, gods, churches such as Providence, Godshill; Royalty, Queens Land, Victoria Falls; explorers, Columbus, America; Memorable incidents such as Waterloo, etc. Despite the above list of names, many thousands of place names have unknown etymology.

1.4 Proper Nouns and Common Nouns