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[1] Mister Aftershave is late today.
The example in [1] may serve to illustrate that reference is not based on an
objectively correct (versus unsuccessful) choice of expression.We might also note from
example [1] that successful reference is necessarily collaborative, with bith the speaker
and the listener having a role in thinking about what the other has in mind.
Referential and attributive uses
It is important to recignize that not all referring expressions have identifiable
physical referents.Indefinite noun phrases can be used to identify a physically present
entity as in [2a.], but they can also be used to describe etities that are assumed to
exist, but are unknown, as in [2b.], or entities that, as far as we know, don’t exist [2c.].
[2] a. There’s a man waiting for you.
b. He wants to marry a woman with lots of money.
c. We’d love to find a nine-foot-tall basketball player.
The expression in [2b.], ‘a woman with lots of money’, can designate an entity that
is known to the speaker only in terms if its descriptive properties. The word ‘a’ could
be replaced by ‘any’ in this case.This is sometimes called an attributive use, meaning
‘whoever/whatever fits the description’.It would be distinct from a referential use
whereby I actually have a person in mind and, instead of using her name or some
other description, I choose the expression in [2b.], perhaps because I think you’d be
more iterested in hearing that this woman has lots of money than that she has a name.
A similar distinction can be found with definite noun phrases.During a news
report on a mysterious death, the reporter may say[3] without knowing for sure if there
is a person who could be the referent of the definite expression ‘the killer’. This would
be an attributive use(i.e. ‘whoever did the killing’), based on the speaker’s assumption
that the referent must exist.
[3] There was no sign of the killer.
However, if a particular individual had been identified as having done the killing
and had been chased into a building, but escaped, then uttering the sentence in [3]
about that individual would be a referential use, based on the speaker’s knowledge that
a referent does exist.
The point of this distinction is that expressions themselves cannot be treated as
having reference(as is often assumed in sematic treatments), but are, or are not,
‘invested’ with referential function in a context by a speaker or writer. Speakers often
invite us to assume, via attributive uses, that we can identify what they’re talking about,
even when the entity or individual described may not exist, as in [2c.]. Some other
famous members of that group are the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.

Names and referents
The version of reference being presented here is one in which there is basic
‘intention-to-identify’ and a ‘recognition-of-intention’ collaboration at work. This process need
not only work between one speaker and one listener; it appears to work, in terms of
convention, between all members of a community who share a common language and
culture.That is, there is a convention that certain referring expressions will be used to
identify certain entities on a regular basis.It is our daily experience of the successful
opperation of this convention that may cause us to assume that referring expressions
can only designate very specific entities.This assumption may lead us to think that a
name or proper noun like ‘Shakespeare’ can only be used to identify one specific