Open AccessThe same (as what?)
Author(s) -
Thorstein Fretheim
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
quaderns de filologia. estudis lingüístics/quaderns de filologia. estudis lingüístics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2444-1449
pISSN - 1135-416X
DOI - 10.7203/qf.23.13528
Subject(s) - complement (music) , noun phrase , linguistics , term (time) , phrase , head (geology) , computer science , comprehension , expression (computer science) , function (biology) , natural language processing , noun , philosophy , programming language , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , geomorphology , evolutionary biology , complementation , gene , phenotype , geology , biology
This paper adopts a radical contextualist approach to the reference of definite descriptions that contain the English expression the same, either without a complement or with a complement in the form of a head noun and/or a comparison phrase of the type as X. It is argued that definite descriptions which contain the same do not refer to a unique entity, despite the fact that the result of a comprehension test carried out seems to give some support to the belief that such descriptions may serve the function of a directly referring term.