Deferred reference

In natural language, a deferred reference is the metonymic use of an expression to refer to an entity related to the conventional meaning of that expression, but not denoted by it. Several types of deferred reference have been studied in the literature.

Examples

English

The following examples are from (Nunberg 1995):

• (server to a co-worker in a deli) The ham sandwich is at table 7.
• (restaurant patron to a valet, indicating a key) This is parked out back.
• Yeats is still widely read.

<|--* The table is made of oak. "Oak" often means "timber from an oak tree": this example is literal and not a metaphor. -->

Japanese

The following example is a famous linguistic joke.

• (in a restaurant, when asked who ordered the eel) I am the eel (僕は鰻だ, boku wa unagi da).

References

• Geoffrey NUNBERG (1979). "The non-uniqueness of semantic solutions: Polysemy". Linguistics and Philosophy. 3: 143–184. ISSN 0165-0157 OCLC 3127141.
• Geoffrey NUNBERG (1995). "Transfers of meaning". Journal of Semantics. 12: 109–132. ISSN 1477-4593 ISSN 0167-5133 OCLC 49846877.
• Gregory WARD (2004). "Equatives and deferred reference" (PDF). Language. 80 (2): 262–289. ISSN 0097-8507. Retrieved 2007-01-19.