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In the first example, if the hearer knows what an apple and a table are, and understands the relation expressed by on, and is aware that the is a signal that an individual thing or person is intended, they can build up the meaning of the expression from the words and grammar and use it to identify an intended object (often within sight, or at ...
A referent (/ ˈ r ɛ f ə r ə n t / REF-ər-ənt) is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers.For example, in the sentence Mary saw me, the referent of the word Mary is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, while the referent of the word me is the person uttering the sentence.
فلانی (Folānī): Loan word from Arabic, which is used in Persian for both male and female subjects. [47] یارو (Yarū): Mainly derogatory, and associated strongly with the Tehrani dialect. Is used to mean "that person over there". [48]
Personal deictic words, called personal pronouns in English, refer to the grammatical persons involved in an utterance. These can include the first person (speaker), second person (addressee), third, and in some languages fourth and fifth person. [12] [13] Personal deixis may give further information about the referent, such as gender.
For example, in Bill said Alice would arrive soon, and she did, the words Alice and she refer to the same person. [1] Co-reference is often non-trivial to determine. For example, in Bill said he would come, the word he may or may not refer to Bill. Determining which expressions are coreferences is an important part of analyzing or understanding ...
A word that describes itself is called an autological word (or autonym). This generally applies to adjectives, for example sesquipedalian (i.e. "sesquipedalian" is a sesquipedalian word), but can also apply to other parts of speech, such as TLA, as a three-letter abbreviation for "three-letter abbreviation".
Placeholder words exist in a highly informal register of the English language. In formal speech and writing, words like accessory, paraphernalia, artifact, instrument, or utensil are preferred; these words serve substantially the same function, but differ in connotation. Most of these words can be documented in at least the 19th century.
An example of this is saying "I need a hand" with a project, but needing the entire person. [15] A macrocosm is the opposite, using the name of the entire structure of something to refer to a small part. [14] An example of this is saying "the world" while referring to a certain country or part of the planet. [15]