referent

Definition:

The person, thing, or idea that a word or expression stands for. See also:

• Antecedent
• Reference
• Anaphora (grammar)
• Cataphora
• Exophora

Etymology:

From the Latin, "carry"

Examples and Observations:

• "In [the transitive verb pattern] (My roommate and I became good friends), the two noun phrases have the same referent: My roommate and I and good friends refer to the same people. We could in fact say

  My roommate and I are good friends,

  using the linking be."
  (Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects. 3rd ed., Allyn and Bacon, 1999)



• "When language is used to attribute properties to language or otherwise theorize about it, a linguistic device is needed that ‘turns language on itself.’ Quotation is one such device. It is our primary meta-linguistic tool. If you don't understand quotation, then you can't understand sentences like:
  1. ‘Snow is white’ is true in English if snow is white.
  2. ‘Aristotle’ refers to Aristotle.
  . . .
  Quotation is a device for talking about language, but it does so in a particularly tricky way: somehow quotation manages to use its referent to do (or at least to participate in) the referring; the referent of 'Aristotle' is part of 'Aristotle.' As such, it is a particularly interesting referential device."
  (Herman Cappelen and Ernest LePore, "Quotation," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005)

Pronunciation: REF-er-unt