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The sense-reference distinction is commonly confused with that between connotation and denotation, which originates with John Stuart Mill. [25] According to Mill, a common term like 'white' denotes all white things, as snow, paper.
Reference itself captures the relationship between the referent and the word or phrase used by the speaker. For referring expressions, the denotation of the phrase is most likely the phrase's referent. For content words, the denotation of the word can refer to any object, real or imagined, to which the word could be applied. [2]
The philosopher John Stuart Mill was one of the earliest modern advocates of a direct reference theory beginning in 1843. [4] In his A System of Logic Mill introduced a distinction between what he called "connotation" and "denotation". Connotation is a relation between a name (singular or general) and one or more attributes.
The distinction between sense and reference was first introduced by the philosopher Gottlob Frege. [29] Meaning is often analyzed in terms of sense and reference, [30] also referred to as intension and extension or connotation and denotation. [31] The referent of an expression is the object to which the expression points.
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) added a third possible step in world view or Weltanschauung in which metacognitive schema such as liberty, sexuality, autonomy, etc. create a framework of reference from which more abstract meanings may be attributed to the signs, depending on the context.
Denotation and exemplification are both types of reference. Goodman calls denotation the "core of representation." (5) Something is denoted when it is referred to by a label but does not "possess" it. Exemplification is possession plus reference. "While anything may be denoted, only labels may be exemplified." (57)
Denotation, in other words, is a semantically inert property, in this view. Whereas Frege held that there were two distinct parts (or aspects) of the meaning of every term, phrase, or sentence (its sense and reference: Sinn and Bedeutung), Russell explicitly rejects the notion of sense (Sinn), and gives several arguments against it.
Denotation is the relation existing between a lexical item and a set of potential referents in some world. Reference is the relation between some expression and actual referents (subject to the technical restriction given above).