. . . successful reference does not depend upon the truth of the description contained in the referring expression. The speaker (and perhaps alsothe hearer) may mistakenly believe that some person is the postman,when he is in fact the professor of linguistics, and incorrectly, thoughsuccessfully, refer to him by means of the expression ‘the postman’. It isnot even necessary that the speaker should believe that the descriptionis true of the referent. He may be ironically employing a description heknows to be false, or diplomatically accepting as correct a false description which his hearer believes to be true of the referent; and there areyet other possibilities.(Lyons 1977: 181–182)
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