code: public SemanticType extractElementType(SemanticType.Reference type, SyntacticItem item) {
  		if (type == null) {
  			return null;
  		} else {
  			return type.getElement();
  		}
  	}
docs: Extract the element type from a reference. The array type can be null if some
  earlier part of type checking generated an error message and we are just
  continuing after that.
  
  @param type
  @param item
  @return