Deferred reference
Encyclopedia
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.
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
, a deferred reference is the metonymic
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
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.
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.