Introducing English Linguistics

The man
said that he was leaving soon.
However, if the two noun phrases are reversed, as in the next example, he
cannot be co-referential with the man but has an entirely different referent:
He
said the man was leaving soon.
In all of the examples of endophoric reference discussed thus far, a
third person pronoun has referred to a specific noun phrase. However, it
is also possible for third person pronouns to refer to larger structures, that
is, to have broad reference. In the example below, that refers not to a sin-
gle noun phrase but to the entire idea that the community as a group
attends the high school play:
so everyone in the community goes to the high school play that’s very
interesting
(MICASE OFC115SU060)
In the next exchange, this in Speaker B’s turn refers back to everything
that Speaker A uttered in the first turn:
Speaker A: And then it just went into a scab and then sort of crumbled
and went into another scab. And then I mean like when I
wash my hair it softens. And when I put the it softens. And
it’s it’s not a very stable scab. But er and I’ve got these lumps
as well on my neck.
Speaker B: Yes. Oh dear this sounds awful.
(CIC)
Because the reference of that and  this is so expansive in the preceding
examples, broad reference tends to predominate in informal speech.
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INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

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In instances of exophoric or endophoric reference, the referents can be
either generic or specific. If a noun phrase has generic reference, it will
refer to all members of a class rather than to specific members of the
class. In the example below, the noun phrase students refers to the class of
all students entering a university, not to a specific group of students at a
specific university:
Even when students arrive at university and grab gratefully at the near-
est approximation which they can find to a state-of-the-pre-Reformation
Church essay question, their responses tend to reflect the same general
ethos.
(CIC)
Likewise, in the next example, the noun phrases dinosaurs and  mammals
refer to the class of these types of animals, not to specific instances of the
animals:
The idea that dinosaurs simply radiated into the ecological niches that
had already been vacated, and that mammals 130 million or so years
later did the same thing after the dinosaurs had departed, has profound
philosophical implications.
(BNC B7K 494)
In contrast, specific reference involves reference to an actual entity. In
the example below, both students and  the students have specific reference
because they refer to actual groups of students:
SUSPECTED Sikh terrorists yesterday shot dead 19 students and seriously
wounded several others in Patiala, Punjab, raising fears of a fresh extrem-
ist offensive in the north Indian state before this month’s parliamentary
polls. The students, all Hindus from colleges of the neighbouring states
of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, had come to Patiala for a students’ festival
and were sleeping in a dormitory when they were attacked yesterday. The
assailants, armed with automatic rifles, burst into the dormitory.
(BNC A87 438)
Noun phrases with specific reference can be indefinite or definite.
Indefinite noun phrases can be either plural (without an article) or sin-
gular (with an indefinite article). The first noun phrase above, students, is
indefinite because it lacks an article. If this noun phrase were singular, it
would have been preceded by an indefinite article (e.g. Sikh terrorists yes-
terday shot a student dead). The second noun phrase, the students, is definite
because it is preceded by the definite article the. Typically in a text, infor-
mation that is new information will have indefinite reference, and infor-
mation that is old will have definite reference.
In the next example, the reference is indefinite not only because the
noun phrase is new information but because the speaker and hearer do
not share knowledge of the actual student being referred to:
I have a student ... who is very talented in programming.
(CIC)
English words: Structure and meaning
185

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If the speaker and hearer had shared knowledge of the student, the speaker
might have said something like “Remember the student I told you about
who was a good programmer?”