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{{short description|Discipline of philosophy that deals with language and meaning}}
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In [[Philosophy:Analytic philosophy|analytic philosophy]], '''philosophy of language''' investigates the nature of [[Social:Language|language]] and the relations between language, language users, and the world.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-language|title=Philosophy of language|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=2018-11-14|language=en}}</ref> Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of [[Philosophy:Meaning (philosophy of language)|meaning]], [[Philosophy:Intentionality|intentionality]], [[Philosophy:Reference|reference]], the constitution of sentences, concepts, [[Learning|learning]], and [[Philosophy:Thought|thought]].

[[Biography:Gottlob Frege|Gottlob Frege]] and [[Biography:Bertrand Russell|Bertrand Russell]] were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's "[[Philosophy:Linguistic turn|linguistic turn]]". These writers were followed by [[Biography:Ludwig Wittgenstein|Ludwig Wittgenstein]] (''[[Philosophy:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus|Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus]]''), the [[Philosophy:Vienna Circle|Vienna Circle]], [[Philosophy:Logical positivism|logical positivists]], and [[Biography:Willard Van Orman Quine|Willard Van Orman Quine]].<ref name=IEP>{{Cite web|url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/lang-phi/|title=Philosophy of Language|website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy|language=en|access-date=2019-09-22}}</ref>

== History ==

===Ancient philosophy===
In the West, inquiry into language stretches back to the 5th century BC with [[Biography:Socrates|Socrates]], [[Biography:Plato|Plato]], [[Biography:Aristotle|Aristotle]], and the [[Philosophy:Stoicism|Stoics]].<ref>Blackburn, S. "History of the Philosophy of Language". In ''Oxford Companion to Philosophy''. ed. Ted Honderich. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1995. {{ISBN|0-19-866132-0}}</ref> Both in India and in Greece, linguistic speculation predates the emergence of [[Social:Grammar|grammatical traditions]] of systematic description of language, which emerged around the 5th century BC in India (see Yāska), and around the 3rd century BC in Greece (see Rhianus).

In the dialogue ''Cratylus'', Plato considered the question of whether the names of things were determined by convention or by nature. He criticized [[Philosophy:Conventionalism|conventionalism]] because it led to the bizarre consequence that anything can be conventionally denominated by any name. Hence, it cannot account for the correct or incorrect application of a name. He claimed that there was a natural correctness to names. To do this, he pointed out that compound words and phrases have a range of correctness. He also argued that primitive names had a natural correctness, because each [[Social:Phoneme|phoneme]] represented basic ideas or sentiments. For example, for Plato the letter ''l'' and its sound represented the idea of softness. However, by the end of the ''Cratylus'', he had admitted that some social conventions were also involved, and that there were faults in the idea that phonemes had individual meanings.<ref>Plato, ''Cratylus'' (c. 360 BCE). Series: Cambridge Studies in the Dialogues of Plato. Trans. David Sedley. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. 2003. {{ISBN|978-0-521-58492-0}} also available from Project Gutenberg.</ref> Plato is often considered a proponent of extreme realism.

Aristotle interested himself with the issues of [[Logic|logic]], categories, and meaning creation. He separated all things into categories of species and [[Philosophy:Genus|genus]]. He thought that the meaning of a [[Philosophy:Predicate (grammar)|predicate]] was established through an abstraction of the similarities between various individual things. This theory later came to be called ''[[Philosophy:Nominalism|nominalism]]''.<ref>Steven K. Strange, (1992) ''Porphyry: On Aristotle, Categories''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. {{ISBN|0-8014-2816-5}}.</ref> However, since Aristotle took these similarities to be constituted by a real commonality of form, he is more often considered a proponent of "[[Philosophy:Moderate realism|moderate realism]]".

The [[Philosophy:Stoicism|Stoic]] philosophers made important contributions to the analysis of grammar, distinguishing five parts of speech: nouns, verbs, appellatives (names or epithets), conjunctions and articles. They also developed a sophisticated doctrine of the ''[[Philosophy:Lektón|lektón]]'' associated with each sign of a language, but distinct from both the sign itself and the thing to which it refers. This ''lektón'' was the meaning (or sense) of every term. The complete ''lektón'' of a sentence is what we would now call its [[Proposition|proposition]].<ref name="Eco">{{cite book |last1=Eco |first1=Umberto |title=Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language |date=1986 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=9780253203984 |url=https://archive.org/details/semioticsphiloso00ecou |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/semioticsphiloso00ecou/page/30 30] |quote=BHAGLAND (The Stoic Concept of Lekton. |language=en}}</ref> Only propositions were considered "[[Philosophy:Truth-bearer|truth-bearer]]s" or "truth-vehicles" (i.e., they could be called true or false) while sentences were simply their vehicles of expression. Different ''lektá'' could also express things besides propositions, such as commands, questions and exclamations.<ref>Mates, B. (1953) ''Stoic Logic''. Berkeley: University of California Press. {{ISBN|0-520-02368-4}}</ref>

===Medieval philosophy===
Medieval philosophers were greatly interested in the subtleties of language and its usage. For many [[Philosophy:Scholasticism|scholastics]], this interest was provoked by the necessity of translating [[Social:Greek language|Greek]] texts into [[Social:Latin|Latin]]. There were several noteworthy philosophers of language in the medieval period. According to Peter J. King, (although this has been disputed), [[Biography:Peter Abelard|Peter Abelard]] anticipated the modern theories of reference.<ref>King, Peter. ''Peter Abelard.'' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abelard/#4</ref> Also, [[Biography:William of Ockham|William of Ockham]]'s ''[[Philosophy:Sum of Logic|Summa Logicae]]'' brought forward one of the first serious proposals for codifying a mental language.<ref>Chalmers, D. (1999) "Is there Synonymy in Occam's Mental Language?". Published in ''The Cambridge Companion to Ockham'', edited by Paul Vincent Spade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-58244-5}}</ref>

The scholastics of the high medieval period, such as Ockham and John Duns Scotus, considered logic to be a ''scientia sermocinalis'' (science of language). The result of their studies was the elaboration of linguistic-philosophical notions whose complexity and subtlety has only recently come to be appreciated. Many of the most interesting problems of modern philosophy of language were anticipated by medieval thinkers. The phenomena of vagueness and ambiguity were analyzed intensely, and this led to an increasing interest in problems related to the use of ''syncategorematic'' words such as ''and'', ''or'', ''not'', ''if'', and ''every''. The study of ''categorematic'' words (or ''terms'') and their properties was also developed greatly.<ref name="MD">Marconi, D. "Storia della Filosofia del Linguaggio". In ''L'Enciclopedia Garzantina della Filosofia''. ed. Gianni Vattimo. Milan: Garzanti Editori. 1981. {{ISBN|88-11-50515-1}}</ref> One of the major developments of the scholastics in this area was the doctrine of the ''suppositio''.<ref name="KKP">[[Biography:Norman Kretzmann|Kretzmann, N.]], [[Biography:Anthony Kenny|Anthony Kenny]] & [[Biography:Jan Pinborg|Jan Pinborg]]. (1982) ''Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-22605-8}}</ref> The ''suppositio'' of a term is the interpretation that is given of it in a specific context. It can be ''proper'' or ''improper'' (as when it is used in metaphor, metonyms and other figures of speech). A proper ''suppositio'', in turn, can be either formal or material accordingly when it refers to its usual non-linguistic referent (as in "Charles is a man"), or to itself as a linguistic entity (as in "''Charles'' has seven letters"). Such a classification scheme is the precursor of modern distinctions between [[Philosophy:Use–mention distinction|use and mention]], and between language and metalanguage.<ref name="KKP" />

There is a tradition called speculative grammar which existed from the 11th to the 13th century.  Leading scholars included [[Biography:Martin of Dacia|Martin of Dacia]] and [[Biography:Thomas of Erfurt|Thomas of Erfurt]] (see ''[[Biography:Modistae|Modistae]]'').

===Modern philosophy===
Linguists of the [[Philosophy:Renaissance|Renaissance]] and [[History:Baroque|Baroque]] periods such as Johannes Goropius Becanus, [[Biography:Athanasius Kircher|Athanasius Kircher]] and John Wilkins were infatuated with the idea of a [[Philosophical language|philosophical language]] reversing the confusion of tongues, influenced by the gradual discovery of Chinese characters and [[Social:Egyptian hieroglyphs|Egyptian hieroglyphs]] (''Hieroglyphica''). This thought parallels the idea that there might be a universal language of music.

European scholarship began to absorb the Indian linguistic tradition only from the mid-18th century, pioneered by Jean François Pons and [[Biography:Henry Thomas Colebrooke|Henry Thomas Colebrooke]] (the ''editio princeps'' of Varadarāja, a 17th-century [[Social:Sanskrit|Sanskrit]] grammarian, dating to 1849).

In the early 19th century, the Danish philosopher [[Biography:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]] insisted that language ought to play a larger role in [[Philosophy:Western philosophy|Western philosophy]]. He argued that philosophy has not sufficiently focused on the role language plays in cognition and that future philosophy ought to proceed with a conscious focus on language:

{{blockquote|If the claim of philosophers to be unbiased were all it pretends to be, it would also have to take account of language and its whole significance in relation to speculative philosophy&nbsp;... Language is partly something originally given, partly that which develops freely. And just as the individual can never reach the point at which he becomes absolutely independent&nbsp;... so too with language.<ref>Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). In Cloeren, H. ''Language and Thought''. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988.</ref>}}

===Contemporary philosophy===
The phrase "[[Philosophy:Linguistic turn|linguistic turn]]" was used to describe the noteworthy emphasis that contemporary philosophers put upon language.

Language began to play a central role in Western philosophy in the early 20th century. One of the central figures involved in this development was the German philosopher [[Biography:Gottlob Frege|Gottlob Frege]], whose work on philosophical logic and the philosophy of language in the late 19th century influenced the work of 20th-century analytic philosophers [[Biography:Bertrand Russell|Bertrand Russell]] and [[Biography:Ludwig Wittgenstein|Ludwig Wittgenstein]]. The philosophy of language became so pervasive that for a time, in [[Philosophy:Analytic philosophy|analytic philosophy]] circles, philosophy as a whole was understood to be a matter of philosophy of language.

In [[Philosophy:Continental philosophy|continental philosophy]], the foundational work in the field was [[Biography:Ferdinand de Saussure|Ferdinand de Saussure]]'s ''Cours de linguistique générale'',<ref name=Kreps>David Kreps, ''Bergson, Complexity and Creative Emergence'', Springer, 2015, p. 92.</ref> published posthumously in 1916.

==Major topics and subfields==

===Meaning<!--'Reference theory of meaning' redirects here-->===
The topic that has received the most attention in the philosophy of language has been the ''nature'' of meaning, to explain what "meaning" is, and what we mean when we talk about meaning. Within this area, issues include: the nature of synonymy, the origins of meaning itself, our apprehension of meaning, and the nature of composition (the question of how meaningful units of language are composed of smaller meaningful parts, and how the meaning of the whole is derived from the meaning of its parts).

There have been several distinctive explanations of what a [[Philosophy:Meaning (linguistics)|linguistic "meaning"]] is. Each has been associated with its own body of literature.
* The ideational theory of meaning, most commonly associated with the British [[Philosophy:Empiricism|empiricist]] [[Biography:John Locke|John Locke]], claims that meanings are [[Philosophy:Mental representation|mental representation]]s provoked by signs.<ref>Grigoris Antoniou, John Slaney (eds.), ''Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence'', Springer, 1998, p. 9.</ref> Although this view of meaning has been beset by a number of problems from the beginning (see the main article for details), interest in it has been renewed by some contemporary theorists under the guise of ''semantic internalism''.<ref>Block, Ned. "Conceptual Role Semantics" [http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/ConceptualRoleSemantics.html (online)].</ref>
* The [[Philosophy:Truth-conditional semantics|truth-conditional theory of meaning]] holds meaning to be the conditions under which an expression may be true or false. This tradition goes back at least to [[Biography:Gottlob Frege|Frege]] and is associated with a rich body of modern work, spearheaded by philosophers like [[Biography:Alfred Tarski|Alfred Tarski]] and [[Biography:Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]].<ref name="Tarsk">Tarski, Alfred. (1944). "The Semantical Conception of Truth". [http://www.ditext.com/tarski/tarski.html PDF].</ref><ref name="TandI">Davidson, D. (2001) ''Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-924629-7}}</ref> (See also Wittgenstein's [[Philosophy:Picture theory of language|picture theory of language]].)
* The use theory of meaning, most commonly associated with the later Wittgenstein, helped inaugurate the idea of "meaning as use", and a communitarian view of language. Wittgenstein was interested in the way in which the communities use language, and how far it can be taken.<ref name="LW">Wittgenstein, L. (1958) ''Philosophical Investigations''. Third edition. trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.</ref> It is also associated with [[Biography:P. F. Strawson|P. F. Strawson]], [[Biography:John Searle|John Searle]], [[Biography:Robert Brandom|Robert Brandom]], and others.<ref name="Brand">Brandom, R. (1994) ''Making it Explicit''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|0-674-54330-0}}</ref>
* The [[Philosophy:Inferential role semantics|inferentialist]] theory of meaning, the view that the meaning of an expression is derived from the [[Philosophy:Inference|inferential]] relations that it has with other expressions. This view is thought to be descended from the use theory of meaning, and has been most notably defended by [[Biography:Wilfrid Sellars|Wilfrid Sellars]] and [[Biography:Robert Brandom|Robert Brandom]].
* The [[Philosophy:Direct reference theory|direct reference theory]] of meaning, the view that the meaning of a word or expression is what it points out in the world. While views of this kind have been widely criticized regarding the use of language in general, [[Biography:John Stuart Mill|John Stuart Mill]] defended a form of this view, and [[Biography:Saul Kripke|Saul Kripke]] and [[Biography:Ruth Barcan Marcus|Ruth Barcan Marcus]] have both defended the application of direct reference theory to proper names.
* The [[Philosophy:Semantic externalism|semantic externalist]] theory of meaning, according to which meaning is not a purely psychological phenomenon, because it is determined, at least in part, by features of one's environment. There are two broad subspecies of externalism: social and environmental. The first is most closely associated with [[Biography:Tyler Burge|Tyler Burge]] and the second with [[Biography:Hilary Putnam|Hilary Putnam]], [[Biography:Saul Kripke|Saul Kripke]] and others.<ref>Burge, Tyler. 1979. Individualism and the Mental. ''Midwest Studies in Philosophy'' 4: 73–121.</ref><ref>Putnam, H. (1975) [http://internalism.googlegroups.com/web/Putnam%20-%20The%20meaning%20of%20%27meaning%27.pdf?gda=twdJY1oAAABFSTngQf24Sy1RD7yNn1iVgy3Odg0ZctAT1N_Bh2qhdGG1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDQe1sJTwbuelxnpaL6JzH4yeFMfiRQRvg6UTOJgQe0faGtRc9Sp7hcxNJ_gjwZr8bQ "The Meaning of 'Meaning'"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130618031552/http://internalism.googlegroups.com/web/Putnam%20-%20The%20meaning%20of%20%27meaning%27.pdf?gda=twdJY1oAAABFSTngQf24Sy1RD7yNn1iVgy3Odg0ZctAT1N_Bh2qhdGG1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDQe1sJTwbuelxnpaL6JzH4yeFMfiRQRvg6UTOJgQe0faGtRc9Sp7hcxNJ_gjwZr8bQ |date=2013-06-18 }}. In ''Language, Mind and Knowledge''. ed. K. Gunderson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. {{ISBN|88-459-0257-9}}</ref><ref name="SK">Kripke, S. (1980) ''Naming and Necessity''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. {{ISBN|88-339-1135-7}}</ref>
* The verificationist theory of meaning is generally associated with the early 20th century movement of [[Philosophy:Logical positivism|logical positivism]]. The traditional formulation of such a theory is that the meaning of a sentence is its method of verification or falsification. In this form, the thesis was abandoned after the acceptance by most philosophers of the [[Philosophy:Duhem–Quine thesis|Duhem–Quine thesis]] of [[Philosophy:Confirmation holism|confirmation holism]] after the publication of Quine's "[[Philosophy:Two Dogmas of Empiricism|Two Dogmas of Empiricism]]".<ref>Voltolini, A. (2002) "Olismi Irriducibilmente Indipendenti?". In ''Olismo'' ed. Massimo Dell'Utri. Macerata: Quodlibet. {{ISBN|88-86570-85-6}}</ref> However, [[Biography:Michael Dummett|Michael Dummett]] has advocated a modified form of verificationism since the 1970s. In this version, the ''comprehension'' (and hence meaning) of a sentence consists in the hearer's ability to recognize the demonstration (mathematical, empirical or other) of the truth of the sentence.<ref name="Dummett">Dummett, M. (1991) ''The Logical Basis of Metaphysics''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|88-15-05669-6}}</ref>
* [[Philosophy:Pragmatism|Pragmatic theories of meaning]] include any theory in which the meaning (or understanding) of a sentence is determined by the consequences of its application. Dummett attributes such a theory of meaning to [[Biography:Charles Sanders Peirce|Charles Sanders Peirce]] and other early 20th century American pragmatists.<ref name="Dummett" />
* [[Biography:Paul Grice#Grice on meaning|Psychological theories of meaning]], which focus on the intentions of a speaker in determining the meaning of an utterance. One notable proponent of such a view was [[Biography:Paul Grice|Paul Grice]], whose views also account for [[Meaning (non-linguistic)|non-linguistic meaning]] (i.e., meaning as conveyed by body language, meanings as consequences, etc.).<ref>Grice, Paul. "Meaning". ''Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language.'' (2000), ed. Robert Stainton.</ref>

=== Reference<!--'Philosophy of reference', 'Metaphysics of reference', 'Reference theory', 'Theory of reference', and 'Theories of reference' redirect here--> ===
Investigations into how language interacts with the world are called '''theories of reference'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->. [[Biography:Gottlob Frege|Gottlob Frege]] was an advocate of a [[Philosophy:Mediated reference theory|mediated reference theory]]. Frege divided the semantic content of every expression, including sentences, into two components: [[Philosophy:Sense and reference|sense and reference]]. The sense of a sentence is the thought that it expresses. Such a thought is abstract, universal and objective. The sense of any sub-sentential expression consists in its contribution to the thought that its embedding sentence expresses. Senses determine reference and are also the modes of presentation of the objects to which expressions refer. Referents are the objects in the world that words pick out. The senses of sentences are thoughts, while their referents are [[Philosophy:Truth value|truth value]]s (true or false). The referents of sentences embedded in [[Philosophy:Propositional attitude|propositional attitude]] ascriptions and other opaque contexts are their usual senses.<ref name="GF">Frege, G. (1892). "On Sense and Reference". In ''Frege: Senso, Funzione e Concetto''. eds. Eva Picardi and [[Biography:Carlo Penco|Carlo Penco]]. Bari: Editori Laterza. 2001. {{ISBN|88-420-6347-9}}</ref>

[[Biography:Bertrand Russell|Bertrand Russell]], in his later writings and for reasons related to his theory of acquaintance in [[Philosophy:Epistemology|epistemology]], held that the only directly referential expressions are, what he called, "logically proper names". Logically proper names are such terms as ''I'', ''now'', ''here'' and other indexicals.<ref>Stanley, Jason. (2006). [http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jasoncs/routledge.pdf Philosophy of Language in the Twentieth Century]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060424165706/http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jasoncs/routledge.pdf |date=2006-04-24 }}. Forthcoming in the Routledge Guide to Twentieth Century Philosophy.</ref><ref>Gaynesford, M. de ''I: The Meaning of the First Person Term'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.</ref> He viewed proper names of the sort described above as "abbreviated [[Philosophy:Definite description|definite description]]s" (see ''[[Philosophy:Theory of descriptions|Theory of descriptions]]''). Hence ''Joseph R. Biden'' may be an abbreviation for "the current President of the United States and husband of Jill Biden".  Definite descriptions are denoting phrases (see "On Denoting") which are analyzed by Russell into existentially quantified logical constructions. Such phrases denote in the sense that there is an object that satisfies the description. However, such objects are not to be considered meaningful on their own, but have meaning only in the [[Proposition|proposition]] expressed by the sentences of which they are a part. Hence, they are not directly referential in the same way as logically proper names, for Russell.<ref>Russell, B. (1905) "On Denoting". Published in ''Mind''.[http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Russell/denoting/ online text], Neale, Stephen (1990) Descriptions, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.</ref><ref>Russell, B. (1903) ''I Principi della Matematica''. Original title: ''The Principles of Mathematics''. Italian trans. by Enrico Carone and Maurizio Destro. Rome: Newton Compton editori. 1971. {{ISBN|88-8183-730-7}}</ref>

On Frege's account, any referring expression has a sense as well as a referent. Such a "mediated reference" view has certain theoretical advantages over Mill's view. For example, co-referential names, such as ''Samuel Clemens'' and ''Mark Twain'', cause problems for a directly referential view because it is possible for someone to hear "Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens" and be surprised – thus, their cognitive content seems different.

Despite the differences between the views of Frege and Russell, they are generally lumped together as [[Philosophy:Descriptivist theory of names|descriptivists]] about proper names. Such descriptivism was criticized in [[Biography:Saul Kripke|Saul Kripke]]'s ''Naming and Necessity''.

Kripke put forth what has come to be known as "the modal argument" (or "argument from rigidity"). Consider the name ''Aristotle'' and the descriptions "the greatest student of Plato", "the founder of logic" and "the teacher of Alexander". [[Biography:Aristotle|Aristotle]] obviously satisfies all of the descriptions (and many of the others we commonly associate with him), but it is not [[Logical truth|necessarily true]] that if Aristotle existed then Aristotle was any one, or all, of these descriptions. Aristotle may well have existed without doing any single one of the things for which he is known to posterity. He may have existed and not have become known to posterity at all or he may have died in infancy. Suppose that Aristotle is associated by Mary with the description "the last great philosopher of antiquity" and (the actual) Aristotle died in infancy. Then Mary's description would seem to refer to Plato. But this is deeply counterintuitive. Hence, names are ''[[Philosophy:Rigid designator|rigid designator]]s'', according to Kripke. That is, they refer to the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists. In the same work, Kripke articulated several other arguments against "Frege–Russell" descriptivism<ref name="SK" /> (see also Kripke's [[Philosophy:Causal theory of reference|causal theory of reference]]).

The whole philosophical enterprise of studying reference has been critiqued by linguist [[Biography:Noam Chomsky|Noam Chomsky]] in various works.<ref>Chomsky, Noam. ''New horizons in the study of language and mind''. Cambridge University Press, 2000.</ref><ref>Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo, Juan Uriagereka, and Pello Salaburu, eds. ''Of Minds and Language: A Dialogue with Noam Chomsky in the Basque Country''. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 27.</ref>

===Composition and parts===
It has long been known that there are different parts of speech. One part of the common sentence is the lexical word, which is composed of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. A major question in the field – perhaps the single most important question for [[Philosophy:Formalism|formalist]] and [[Structuralism|structuralist]] thinkers – is how the meaning of a sentence emerges from its parts.

[[File:syntactic-semantic trees.gif|right|thumb|230px|Example of a syntactic tree]]

Many aspects of the problem of the composition of sentences are addressed in the field of linguistics of [[Philosophy:Syntax|syntax]]. Philosophical semantics tends to focus on the [[Philosophy:Principle of compositionality|principle of compositionality]] to explain the relationship between meaningful parts and whole sentences. The principle of compositionality asserts that a sentence can be understood on the basis of the meaning of the ''parts'' of the sentence (i.e., words, morphemes) along with an understanding of its ''structure'' (i.e., syntax, logic).<ref>Pagin, P. "Are Holism and Compositionality Compatible?" In ''Olismo''. ed. Massimo dell'Utri. Macerata: Quodlibet. 2002. {{ISBN|88-86570-85-6}}</ref>  Further, syntactic propositions are arranged into ''discourse'' or ''narrative'' structures, which also encode meanings through [[Philosophy:Pragmatics|pragmatics]] like temporal relations and pronominals.<ref>''Syntax: An Introduction, Volume 1'' by Talmy Givón, John Benjamins Publishing, 2001</ref>

It is possible to use the concept of ''functions'' to describe more than just how lexical meanings work: they can also be used to describe the meaning of a sentence. In the sentence "The horse is red",  "the horse" can be considered to be the product of a ''[[Propositional function|propositional function]]''. A propositional function is an operation of language that takes an entity (in this case, the horse) as an input and outputs a ''semantic fact'' (i.e., the proposition that is represented by "The horse is red"). In other words, a propositional function is like an algorithm. The meaning of "red" in this case is whatever takes the entity "the horse" and turns it into the statement, "The horse is red."<ref name="Stainton">Stainton, Robert J. (1996). [https://archive.org/details/philosophicalper0000stai Philosophical perspectives on language]. Peterborough, Ont., Broadview Press.</ref>

Linguists have developed at least two general methods of understanding the relationship between the parts of a linguistic string and how it is put together: syntactic and semantic trees. [[Philosophy:Syntax|Syntactic]] trees draw upon the words of a sentence with the ''[[Social:Grammar|grammar]]'' of the sentence in mind. While [[Philosophy:Semantics|semantic]] trees focus upon the role of the ''meaning'' of the words and how those meanings combine to provide insight onto the genesis of semantic facts.

=== Mind and language ===

==== Innateness and learning ====
Some of the major issues at the intersection of philosophy of language and philosophy of mind are also dealt with in modern [[Social:Psycholinguistics|psycholinguistics]]. Some important questions regard the amount of innate language, if language acquisition is a special faculty in the mind, and what the connection is between thought and language.

There are three general perspectives on the issue of language learning. The first is the behaviorist perspective, which dictates that not only is the solid bulk of language learned, but it is learned via conditioning. The second is the ''hypothesis testing perspective'', which understands the child's learning of syntactic rules and meanings to involve the postulation and testing of hypotheses, through the use of the general faculty of intelligence. The final candidate for explanation is the [[Philosophy:Psychological nativism|innatist]] perspective, which states that at least some of the syntactic settings are innate and hardwired, based on certain modules of the mind.<ref name="Fodor">{{cite book|title=The Modularity of Mind: An Essay in Faculty Psychology|last=Fodor|first=Jerry A.|publisher=The MIT Press|year=1983|isbn=0-262-56025-9}}</ref><ref name="SP">Pinker, S. (1994) ''L'Istinto del Linguaggio''. Original title: ''The Language Instinct''. 1997. Milan: Arnaldo Mondadori Editori. {{ISBN|88-04-45350-8}}</ref>

There are varying notions of the structure of the brain when it comes to language. [[Connectionism|Connectionist]] models emphasize the idea that a person's lexicon and their thoughts operate in a kind of distributed, [[Philosophy:Associationism|associative]] network.<ref>Churchland, P. (1995) Engine of Reason, Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey Into the Brain. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.</ref> [[Philosophy:Psychological nativism|Nativist model]]s assert that there are specialized devices in the brain that are dedicated to language acquisition.<ref name="SP" /> Computation models emphasize the notion of a representational language of thought and the logic-like, computational processing that the mind performs over them.<ref>Fodor, J and E. Lepore. (1999) "All at Sea in Semantic Space: Churchland on Meaning Similarity". Journal of Philosophy 96, 381–403.</ref> [[Philosophy:Emergentism|Emergentist]] models focus on the notion that natural faculties are a complex system that emerge from simpler biological parts. [[Philosophy:Reductionism|Reductionist]] models attempt to explain higher-level mental processes in terms of the basic low-level neurophysiological activity.<ref>Hofstadter, D.R. (1979) ''Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid''. New York: Random House. {{ISBN|0-394-74502-7}}</ref>

=== Communication ===
Firstly, this field of study seeks to better understand what speakers and listeners do with language in [[Biology:Communication|communication]], and how it is used socially. Specific interests include the topics of [[Social:Language acquisition|language learning]], language creation, and [[Philosophy:Speech act|speech act]]s.

Secondly, the question of how language relates to the minds of both the speaker and the interpreter is investigated. Of specific interest is the grounds for successful [[Philosophy:Translation|translation]] of words and concepts into their equivalents in another language.

==== Language and thought ====
An important problem which touches both philosophy of language and [[Philosophy:Philosophy of mind|philosophy of mind]] is to what extent language influences thought and vice versa. There have been a number of different perspectives on this issue, each offering a number of insights and suggestions.

Linguists [[Philosophy:Linguistic relativity|Sapir and Whorf]] suggested that language limited the extent to which members of a "linguistic community" can think about certain subjects (a hypothesis paralleled in [[Biography:George Orwell|George Orwell]]'s novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'').<ref>Kay, P. and W. Kempton. 1984. "What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?" American Anthropologist 86(1): 65–79.</ref> In other words, language was analytically prior to thought. Philosopher [[Biography:Michael Dummett|Michael Dummett]] is also a proponent of the "language-first" viewpoint.<ref name="BlackwellPhil">{{cite book|title=The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy|year=1999|url=https://archive.org/details/blackwellcompani00bunn_241|url-access=limited|last1=Bunnin|first1=Nicholas|last2=Tsui-James|first2=E. P.|publisher=Blackwell|location=Oxford|page=[https://archive.org/details/blackwellcompani00bunn_241/page/n112 97], 120–121}}</ref>

The stark opposite to the Sapir–Whorf position is the notion that thought (or, more broadly, mental content) has priority over language. The "knowledge-first" position can be found, for instance, in the work of [[Biography:Paul Grice|Paul Grice]].<ref name="BlackwellPhil" /> Further, this view is closely associated with [[Biography:Jerry Fodor|Jerry Fodor]] and his language of thought hypothesis. According to his argument, spoken and written language derive their intentionality and meaning from an internal language encoded in the mind.<ref name="LOT">Fodor, J. ''The Language of Thought'', Harvard University Press, 1975, {{ISBN|0-674-51030-5}}.</ref> The main argument in favor of such a view is that the structure of thoughts and the structure of language seem to share a compositional, systematic character. Another argument is that it is difficult to explain how signs and symbols on paper can represent anything meaningful unless some sort of meaning is infused into them by the contents of the mind. One of the main arguments against is that such levels of language can lead to an infinite regress.<ref name="LOT" /> In any case, many philosophers of mind and language, such as [[Biography:Ruth Millikan|Ruth Millikan]], [[Biography:Fred Dretske|Fred Dretske]] and Fodor, have recently turned their attention to explaining the meanings of mental contents and states directly.

Another tradition of philosophers has attempted to show that language and thought are coextensive – that there is no way of explaining one without the other. Donald Davidson, in his essay "Thought and Talk", argued that the notion of belief could only arise as a product of public linguistic interaction. [[Biography:Daniel Dennett|Daniel Dennett]] holds a similar ''interpretationist'' view of [[Philosophy:Propositional attitude|propositional attitude]]s.<ref>Gozzano, S. "Olismo, Razionalità e Interpretazione". In ''Olismo'' ed. Massimo dell'Utri. 2002. Macerata: Quodlibet. {{ISBN|88-86570-85-6}}</ref> To an extent, the theoretical underpinnings to [[Cognitive semantics|cognitive semantics]] (including the notion of semantic [[Framing (social sciences)|framing]]) suggest the influence of language upon thought.<ref>Lakoff, G. (1987) ''Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind''. Chicago:University of Chicago Press. {{ISBN|0-226-46804-6}}.</ref> However, the same tradition views meaning and grammar as a function of conceptualization, making it difficult to assess in any straightforward way.

Some thinkers, like the ancient sophist [[Biography:Gorgias|Gorgias]], have questioned whether or not language was capable of capturing thought at all.
{{cquote|...speech can never exactly represent perceptibles, since it is different from them, and perceptibles are apprehended each by the one kind of organ, speech by another. Hence, since the objects of sight cannot be presented to any other organ but sight, and the different sense-organs cannot give their information to one another, similarly speech cannot give any information about perceptibles. Therefore, if anything exists and is comprehended, it is incommunicable.<ref>Giorgias (c. 375 BCE) translated by Kathleen Freeman. In Kaufmann, W. ''Philosophic Classics: Thales to Ockham''. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. 1961, 1968.</ref>
}}

There are studies that prove that languages shape how people understand causality. Some of them were performed by [[Biography:Lera Boroditsky|Lera Boroditsky]]. For example, English speakers tend to say things like "John broke the vase" even for accidents. However, [[Social:Spanish language|Spanish]] or [[Social:Japanese language|Japanese]] speakers would be more likely to say "the vase broke itself". In studies conducted by Caitlin Fausey at [[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]] speakers of English, Spanish and Japanese watched videos of two people popping balloons, breaking eggs and spilling drinks either intentionally or accidentally. Later everyone was asked whether they could remember who did what. Spanish and Japanese speakers did not remember the agents of accidental events as well as did English speakers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/Proceedings/2009/papers/559/paper559.pdf |title=csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/Proceedings/2009/papers/559/paper559.pdf |access-date=2011-12-23 |archive-date=2012-04-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426070456/http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/Proceedings/2009/papers/559/paper559.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Social:Russian language|Russian]] speakers, who make an extra distinction between light and dark blue in their language, are better able to visually discriminate shades of blue. The Piraha, a tribe in {{wipe|Brazil}}, whose language has only terms like few and many instead of numerals, are not able to keep track of exact quantities.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703467304575383131592767868?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLETopNews#printMode|title=Lost in Translation. New cognitive research suggests that language profoundly influences the way people see the world; a different sense of blame in Japanese and Spanish by Lera Boroditsky|last=Boroditsky|first=Lera|date=2010-07-23|publisher=Online.wsj.com|access-date=2011-12-10}}</ref>

In one study German and Spanish speakers were asked to describe objects having opposite [[Biology:Gender|gender]] assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender. For example, when asked to describe a "key"—a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish—the [[Social:German language|German]] speakers were more likely to use words like "hard", "heavy", "jagged", "metal", "serrated" and "useful" whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden", "intricate", "little", "lovely", "shiny" and "tiny". To describe a "bridge", which is feminine in German and masculine in Spanish, the German speakers said "beautiful", "elegant", "fragile", "peaceful", "pretty" and "slender", and the Spanish speakers said "big", "dangerous", "long", "strong", "sturdy" and "towering". This was the case even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/boroditsky09/boroditsky09_index.html|title=How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think?|publisher=Edge.org|access-date=2011-12-10}}</ref>

In a series of studies conducted by Gary Lupyan, people were asked to look at a series of images of imaginary aliens.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lupyan |first1=Gary |last2=Rakison |first2=David H. |last3=McClelland |first3=James L. |title=Language is not Just for Talking: Redundant Labels Facilitate Learning of Novel Categories |journal=Psychological Science |date=December 2007 |volume=18 |issue=12 |pages=1077–1083 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.02028.x |pmid=18031415 |s2cid=13455410 |url=http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu/papers/lupyan_rakison_mcClelland_2007.pdf |access-date=15 February 2023 |language=en}}</ref> Whether each alien was friendly or hostile was determined by certain subtle features but participants were not told what these were. They had to guess whether each alien was friendly or hostile, and after each response they were told if they were correct or not, helping them learn the subtle cues that distinguished friend from foe. A quarter of the participants were told in advance that the friendly aliens were called "leebish" and the hostile ones "grecious", while another quarter were told the opposite. For the rest, the aliens remained nameless. It was found that participants who were given names for the aliens learned to categorize the aliens far more quickly, reaching 80 per cent accuracy in less than half the time taken by those not told the names. By the end of the test, those told the names could correctly categorize 88 per cent of aliens, compared to just 80 per cent for the rest. It was concluded that naming objects helps us categorize and memorize them.

In another series of experiments,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/lupyan/web/lupyan_2008_jepG.pdf|title=Archived copy|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131102193358/https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/lupyan/web/lupyan_2008_jepG.pdf|archive-date=2013-11-02|url-status=dead|access-date=2013-07-24}}</ref> a group of people was asked to view furniture from an IKEA catalog. Half the time they were asked to label the object – whether it was a chair or lamp, for example – while the rest of the time they had to say whether or not they liked it. It was found that when asked to label items, people were later less likely to recall the specific details of products, such as whether a chair had arms or not. It was concluded that labeling objects helps our minds build a prototype of the typical object in the group at the expense of individual features.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727761.500-whats-in-a-name-the-words-behind-thought.html?full=true|title=What's in a name? The words behind thought by David Robson|date=2010-09-06|publisher=Newscientist.com|access-date=2011-12-10}}</ref>

=== Social interaction and language ===
A common claim is that language is governed by social conventions. Questions inevitably arise on surrounding topics. One question regards what a convention exactly is, and how it is studied, and second regards the extent that conventions even matter in the study of language. David Kellogg Lewis proposed a worthy reply to the first question by expounding the view that a convention is a "rationally self-perpetuating regularity in behavior". However, this view seems to compete to some extent with the Gricean view of speaker's meaning, requiring either one (or both) to be weakened if both are to be taken as true.<ref name="BlackwellPhil" />

Some have questioned whether or not conventions are relevant to the study of meaning at all. [[Biography:Noam Chomsky|Noam Chomsky]] proposed that the study of language could be done in terms of the I-Language, or internal language of persons. If this is so, then it undermines the pursuit of explanations in terms of conventions, and relegates such explanations to the domain of ''[[Philosophy:Metasemantics|metasemantics]]''. ''Metasemantics'' is a term used by philosopher of language [[Biography:Robert Stainton|Robert Stainton]] to describe all those fields that attempt to explain how semantic facts arise.<ref name="Stainton" /> One fruitful source of research involves investigation into the social conditions that give rise to, or are associated with, meanings and languages. ''[[Social:Etymology|Etymology]]'' (the study of the origins of words) and ''stylistics'' (philosophical argumentation over what makes "good grammar", relative to a particular language) are two other examples of fields that are taken to be metasemantic.

Many separate (but related) fields have investigated the topic of linguistic convention within their own research paradigms. The presumptions that prop up each theoretical view are of interest to the philosopher of language. For instance, one of the major fields of sociology, [[Social:Symbolic interactionism|symbolic interactionism]], is based on the insight that human social organization is based almost entirely on the use of meanings.<ref>Teevan, James J. and W.E. Hewitt. (2001) Introduction to Sociology: A Canadian Focus. Prentice Hall: Toronto. p.10</ref> In consequence, any explanation of a [[Social:Social structure|social structure]] (like an [[Social:Institution|institution]]) would need to account for the shared meanings which create and sustain the structure.

[[Philosophy:Rhetoric|Rhetoric]] is the study of the particular words that people use to achieve the proper emotional and rational effect in the listener, be it to persuade, provoke, endear, or teach. Some relevant applications of the field include the examination of [[Social:Propaganda|propaganda]] and didacticism, the examination of the purposes of swearing and pejoratives (especially how it influences the behaviors of others, and defines relationships), or the effects of gendered language. It can also be used to study linguistic transparency (or speaking in an accessible manner), as well as performative utterances and the various tasks that language can perform (called "speech acts"). It also has applications to the study and interpretation of law, and helps give insight to the logical concept of the [[Philosophy:Domain of discourse|domain of discourse]].

[[Philosophy:Literary theory|Literary theory]] is a discipline that some literary theorists claim overlaps with the philosophy of language. It emphasizes the methods that readers and critics use in understanding a text. This field, an outgrowth of the study of how to properly interpret messages, is
closely tied to the ancient discipline of [[Philosophy:Hermeneutics|hermeneutics]].

=== Truth ===
Finally, philosophers of language investigate how language and meaning relate to [[Truth|truth]] and [[Philosophy:Reference|the reality being referred to]]. They tend to be less interested in which sentences are ''actually true'', and more in  ''what kinds of meanings can be true or false''. A truth-oriented philosopher of language might wonder whether or not a meaningless sentence can be true or false, or whether or not sentences can express propositions about things that do not exist, rather than the way sentences are used.{{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}

==Problems in the philosophy of language==

=== Nature of language ===
{{Main|Philosophy:Theory of language}}
In the philosophical tradition stemming from the Ancient Greeks, such as Plato and Aristotle, language is seen as a tool for making statements about the reality by means of [[Philosophy:Predicate (grammar)|predication]]; e.g. "Man is a rational animal", where ''Man'' is the subject and ''is a rational animal'' is the [[Philosophy:Predicate (grammar)|predicate]], which expresses a property of the subject. Such structures also constitute the syntactic basis of [[Philosophy:Syllogism|syllogism]], which remained the standard model of formal logic until the early 20th century, when it was replaced with predicate logic. In linguistics and philosophy of language, the classical model survived in the Middle Ages, and the link between Aristotelian philosophy of science and linguistics was elaborated by Thomas of Erfurt's [[Biography:Modistae|Modistae]] grammar ({{circa|1305}}), which gives an example of the analysis of the transitive sentence: "Plato strikes Socrates", where ''Socrates'' is the object and part of the predicate.<ref name="Seuren_1998">{{cite book |author=Seuren, Pieter A. M. |title=Western linguistics: An historical introduction |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=1998 |isbn=0-631-20891-7 |pages=250–251}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Itkonen |first=Esa |date=2013 |editor-last=Allen |editor-first=Keith |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=747–775 |chapter=Philosophy of linguistics |isbn=9780199585847}}</ref>

The social and evolutionary aspects of language were discussed during the classical and mediaeval periods. Plato's dialogue Cratylus investigates the [[Philosophy:Iconicity|iconicity]] of words, arguing that words are made by "wordsmiths" and selected by those who need the words, and that the study of language is external to the philosophical objective of studying ideas.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cooper |first1=John M. |last2=Hutchinson |first2=Douglas S. |date=1997 |title=Plato: Complete Works |publisher=Hackett |isbn=978-0872203495}}
</ref> Age-of-Enlightenment thinkers accommodated the classical model with a Christian worldview, arguing that God created Man social and rational, and, out of these properties, Man created his own cultural habits including language.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jermołowicz |first=Renata |date=2003 |title=On the project of a universal language in the framework of the XVII century philosophy |url= |journal=Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric |volume=6 |issue=19 |pages=51–61}}
</ref> In this tradition, the logic of the subject-predicate structure forms a general, or 'universal' grammar, which governs thinking and underpins all languages. Variation between languages was investigated by Port-Royal Grammar, among others, who described it as accidental and separate from the logical requirements of thought and language.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Arnauld |first1=Antoine |last2=Lancelot |first2=Claude |date=1975 |orig-year=First published 1660 |title=General and Rational Grammar : The Port-Royal Grammar |url=https://archive.org/details/portroyalgrammar0000lanc |location=The Hague |publisher=Mouton |isbn=902793004X |url-access=registration }}</ref>

The classical view was overturned in the early 19th century by the advocates of [[Philosophy:German Romanticism|German romanticism]]. [[Biography:Wilhelm von Humboldt|Humboldt]] and his contemporaries questioned the existence of a universal [[Philosophy:Language of thought hypothesis|inner form of thought]]. They argued that, since thinking is verbal, language must be the prerequisite for thought. Therefore, every nation has its own unique way of thinking, a [[Worldview|worldview]], which has evolved with the linguistic history of the nation.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Beak |first=Wouter |date=2004 |title=Linguistic Relativism: Variants and Misconceptions |url=https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/b.bredeweg/pdf/BSc/20052006/Beek.pdf |type=thesis  |publisher=University of Amsterdam|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326024324/https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/b.bredeweg/pdf/BSc/20052006/Beek.pdf |archive-date=2023-03-26 }}</ref> Diversity became emphasized with a focus on the uncontrollable sociohistorical construction of language. Influential romantic accounts include Grimm's sound laws of linguistic evolution, Schleicher's "Darwinian" species-language analogy, the [[Social:Völkerpsychologie|Völkerpsychologie]] accounts of language by Steinthal and [[Biography:Wilhelm Wundt|Wundt]], and [[Biography:Ferdinand de Saussure|Saussure]]'s [[Structural linguistics|semiology]], a dyadic model of [[Philosophy:Semiotics|semiotics]], i.e., language as a [[Philosophy:Sign|sign]] system with its own inner logic, separated from physical reality.<ref>{{cite book |last=Nöth |first=Winfried |title=Handbook of Semiotics |date=1990 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-20959-7 |}}</ref>

In the early 20th century, [[Philosophy:Logical grammar|logical grammar]] was defended by [[Biography:Gottlob Frege|Frege]] and [[Biography:Edmund Husserl|Husserl]]. Husserl's 'pure logical grammar' draws from 17th-century rational universal grammar, proposing a formal semantics that links the structures of physical reality (e.g., "This paper is white") with the structures of the mind, meaning, and the surface form of natural languages. Husserl's treatise was, however, rejected in general linguistics.<ref>
{{cite journal |last=Mays |first=Wolfe  |date=2002 |title=Edmund Husserl's Grammar: 100 Years On |journal=JBSP – Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=317–340 |doi= 10.1080/00071773.2002.11007389 |s2cid=170924210 }}</ref> Instead, linguists opted for [[Biography:Noam Chomsky|Chomsky]]'s theory of [[Universal grammar|universal grammar]] as an innate biological structure that generates syntax in a [[Philosophy:Formalism|formalistic]] fashion, i.e., irrespective of meaning.<ref name="Seuren_1998" />

Many philosophers continue to hold the view that language is a logically based tool of expressing the structures of reality by means of predicate-argument structure. Proponents include, with different nuances, [[Biography:Bertrand Russell|Russell]], [[Biography:Ludwig Wittgenstein|Wittgenstein]], [[Biography:Wilfrid Sellars|Sellars]], [[Biography:Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Davidson]], [[Biography:Hilary Putnam|Putnam]], and [[Biography:John Searle|Searle]]. Attempts to revive logical formal semantics as a basis of linguistics followed, e.g., the [[Montague grammar]]. Despite resistance from linguists including Chomsky and [[Biography:George Lakoff|Lakoff]], formal semantics was established in the late twentieth century. However, its influence has been mostly limited to [[Computational linguistics|computational linguistics]], with little impact on general linguistics.<ref name="Partee3">{{cite book |last=Partee |first=Barbara |title=The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication |publisher=BIYCLC |year=2011 |volume=6 |pages=1–52 |chapter=Formal Semantics: Origins, Issues, Early Impact |doi=10.4148/biyclc.v6i0.1580}}</ref>

The incompatibility with [[Biology:Genetics|genetics]] and [[Social:Neuropsychology|neuropsychology]] of Chomsky's innate grammar gave rise to new psychologically and biologically oriented theories of language in the 1980s, and these have gained influence in linguistics and [[Cognitive science|cognitive science]] in the 21st century. Examples include Lakoff's [[Conceptual metaphor|conceptual metaphor]], which argues that language arises automatically from visual and other sensory input, and different models inspired by [[Biography:Richard Dawkins|Dawkins]]'s [[Philosophy:Memetics|memetics]],<ref name="Blackmore_2008">{{cite journal |last=Blackmore |first=Susan |date=2008 |title=Memes shape brains shape memes |url=https://www.academia.edu/3444108 |journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences |volume=31 |issue=5 |pages=513 |doi=10.1017/S0140525X08005037 |access-date=2020-12-22}}</ref> a [[Biology:Neo-Darwinism|neo-Darwinian]] model of linguistic units as the units of [[Biology:Natural selection|natural selection]]. These include cognitive grammar, [[Construction grammar|construction grammar]], and usage-based linguistics.<ref name="Christiansen&Chater_2008">{{cite journal |last1=Christiansen |first1=Morten H. |last2=Chater |first2=Nick |date=2008 |title=Language as shaped by the brain |url=https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/168484/1/download10.pdf |journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences |volume=31 |issue=5 |pages=489–558 |doi=10.1017/S0140525X08004998 |pmid=18826669 |access-date=2020-12-22}}</ref>

=== Problem of universals and composition ===
{{Further|Philosophy:Problem of universals}}
One debate that has captured the interest of many philosophers is the debate over the meaning of ''universals''. It might be asked, for example, why when people say the word ''rocks'', what it is that the word represents. Two different answers have emerged to this question. Some have said that the expression stands for some real, abstract universal out in the world called "rocks". Others have said that the word stands for some collection of particular, individual rocks that are associated with merely a nomenclature. The former position has been called ''[[Philosophy:Philosophical realism|philosophical realism]]'', and the latter ''[[Philosophy:Nominalism|nominalism]]''.<ref>{{Cite CE1913|wstitle=Nominalism, Realism, Conceptualism}}</ref>

The issue here can be explicated in examination of the proposition "Socrates is a man".

From the realist's perspective, the connection between S and M is a connection between two abstract entities. There is an entity, "man", and an entity, "Socrates". These two things connect in some way or overlap.

From a nominalist's perspective, the connection between S and M is the connection between a particular entity (Socrates) and a vast collection of particular things (men). To say that Socrates is a man is to say that Socrates is a part of the class of "men". Another perspective is to consider "man" to be a ''property'' of the entity, "Socrates".

There is a third way, between nominalism and (extreme) realism, usually called "[[Philosophy:Moderate realism|moderate realism]]" and attributed to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Moderate realists hold that "man" refers to a real essence or form that is really present and identical in Socrates and all other men, but "man" does not exist as a separate and distinct entity. This is a realist position, because "man" is real, insofar as it really exists in all men; but it is a moderate realism, because "man" is not an entity separate from the men it informs.

===Formal versus informal approaches===
Another of the questions that has divided philosophers of language is the extent to which formal logic can be used as an effective tool in the analysis and understanding of natural languages. While most philosophers, including [[Biography:Gottlob Frege|Gottlob Frege]], [[Biography:Alfred Tarski|Alfred Tarski]] and [[Biography:Rudolf Carnap|Rudolf Carnap]], have been more or less skeptical about formalizing natural languages, many of them developed formal languages for use in the sciences or formalized ''parts'' of natural language for investigation. Some of the most prominent members of this tradition of formal semantics include Tarski, Carnap, [[Biography:Richard Montague|Richard Montague]] and [[Biography:Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]].<ref>Partee, B. [http://people.umass.edu/partee/docs/Richard_Montague_by_%20Partee_05.pdf Richard Montague (1930–1971)]. In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd Ed., ed. Keith Brown. Oxford: Elsevier. V. 8, pp. 255–57, 2006.</ref>

On the other side of the divide, and especially prominent in the 1950s and '60s, were the so-called "ordinary language philosophers". Philosophers such as [[Biography:P. F. Strawson|P. F. Strawson]], John Langshaw Austin and [[Biography:Gilbert Ryle|Gilbert Ryle]] stressed the importance of studying natural language without regard to the truth-conditions of sentences and the references of terms. They did not believe that the social and practical dimensions of linguistic meaning could be captured by any attempts at formalization using the tools of logic. Logic is one thing and language is something entirely different. What is important is not expressions themselves but what people use them to do in communication.<ref>Lycan, W. G. (2008). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=j94wa55sCU8C Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction]''. New York: Routledge.</ref>

Hence, Austin developed a theory of [[Philosophy:Speech act|speech act]]s, which described the kinds of things which can be done with a sentence (assertion, command, inquiry, exclamation) in different contexts of use on different occasions.<ref>{{cite book |last=Austin |first=J.L. |year=1962 |title=How to Do Things With Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955 |editor=J.O. Urmson. |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=0-674-41152-8}}</ref> Strawson argued that the truth-table semantics of the logical connectives (e.g., <math> \land </math>, <math> \lor </math> and <math> \rightarrow </math>) do not capture the meanings of their natural language counterparts ("and", "or" and "if-then").<ref>P. F. Strawson, "On Referring". ''Mind'', New Series, Vol. 59, No. 235 (Jul., 1950), pp. 320–344</ref> While the "ordinary language" movement basically died out in the 1970s, its influence was crucial to the development of the fields of speech-act theory and the study of [[Philosophy:Pragmatics|pragmatics]].  Many of its ideas have been absorbed by theorists such as [[Biography:Kent Bach|Kent Bach]], [[Biography:Robert Brandom|Robert Brandom]], [[Biography:Paul Horwich|Paul Horwich]] and [[Biography:Stephen Neale|Stephen Neale]].<ref name="Brand" /> In recent work, the division between semantics and pragmatics has become a lively topic of discussion at the interface of philosophy and linguistics, for instance in work by Sperber and Wilson, Carston and Levinson.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Relevance : communication and cognition|last1=Sperber|first1=Dan|last2=Wilson|first2=Deirdre|date=2001|publisher=Blackwell Publishers|isbn=9780631198789|edition=2nd|location=Oxford|oclc=32589501}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Thoughts and utterances : the pragmatics of explicit communication|last=Robyn.|first=Carston|date=2002|publisher=Blackwell Pub|isbn=9780631178910|location=Oxford, U.K.|oclc=49525903}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Presumptive meanings : the theory of generalized conversational implicature|last=C.|first=Levinson, Stephen|date=2000|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9780262621304|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|oclc=45733473}}</ref>

While keeping these traditions in mind, the question of whether or not there is any grounds for conflict between the formal and informal approaches is far from being decided. Some theorists, like [[Biography:Paul Grice|Paul Grice]], have been skeptical of any claims that there is a substantial conflict between logic and natural language.<ref>Grice, Paul. "Logic and Conversation". ''Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language.'' (2000) ed. Robert Stainton.</ref>

===Translation and interpretation===
Translation and interpretation are two other problems that philosophers of language have attempted to confront. In the 1950s, W.V. Quine argued for the indeterminacy of meaning and reference based on the principle of ''[[Philosophy:Radical translation|radical translation]]''. In ''Word and Object'', Quine asks readers to imagine a situation in which they are confronted with a previously undocumented, group of indigenous people where they must attempt to make sense of the utterances and gestures that its members make. This is the situation of radical translation.<ref name="WVQ">Quine, W.V. (1960) ''Word and Object''. MIT Press; {{ISBN|0-262-67001-1}}.</ref>

He claimed that, in such a situation, it is impossible ''in principle'' to be absolutely certain of the meaning or reference that a speaker of the indigenous peoples language attaches to an utterance. For example, if a speaker sees a rabbit and says "gavagai", is she referring to the whole rabbit, to the rabbit's tail, or to a temporal part of the rabbit. All that can be done is to examine the utterance as a part of the overall linguistic behaviour of the individual, and then use these observations to interpret the meaning of all other utterances. From this basis, one can form a manual of translation. But, since reference is indeterminate, there will be many such manuals, no one of which is more correct than the others. For Quine, as for Wittgenstein and Austin, meaning is not something that is associated with a single word or sentence, but is rather something that, if it can be attributed at all, can only be attributed to a whole language.<ref name="WVQ" /> The resulting view is called ''[[Semantic holism|semantic holism]]''.

Inspired by Quine's discussion, [[Biography:Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]] extended the idea of radical translation to the interpretation of utterances and behavior within a single linguistic community. He dubbed this notion ''radical interpretation''. He suggested that the meaning that any individual ascribed to a sentence could only be determined by attributing meanings to many, perhaps all, of the individual's assertions, as well as their mental states and attitudes.<ref name="TandI" />

===Vagueness===
One issue that has troubled philosophers of language and logic is the problem of the [[Vagueness|vagueness]] of words. The specific instances of vagueness that most interest philosophers of language are those where the existence of "borderline cases" makes it seemingly impossible to say whether a predicate is true or false. Classic examples are "is tall" or "is bald", where it cannot be said that some borderline case (some given person) is tall or not-tall. In consequence, vagueness gives rise to the paradox of the heap. Many theorists have attempted to solve the paradox by way of ''n''-valued logics, such as [[Fuzzy logic|fuzzy logic]], which have radically departed from classical two-valued logics.<ref>Sorensen, Roy. (2006) "Vagueness". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vagueness/#3</ref>

==Further reading==
* Atherton, Catherine. 1993. ''The Stoics on Ambiguity.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
* Denyer, Nicholas. 1991. ''Language, Thought and Falsehood in Ancient Greek Philosophy.'' London: Routledge.
* Kneale, W., and M. Kneale. 1962. ''The Development of Logic.'' Oxford: Clarendon.
* Modrak, Deborah K. W. 2001. ''Aristotle’s Theory of Language and Meaning.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
* Sedley, David. 2003. ''Plato’s Cratylus.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

==See also==
* [[Philosophy:Analytic philosophy|Analytic philosophy]]
* [[Social:Discourse|Discourse]]
* [[Social:Interpersonal communication|Interpersonal communication]]
* [[Social:Linguistics|Linguistics]]
* [[Philosophy:Semiotics|Semiotics]]
* [[Philosophy:Theory of language|Theory of language]]

==External links==
* {{InPho|taxonomy|2231}}
* {{PhilPapers|category|philosophy-of-language}}
* {{cite IEP |url-id=lang-phi/ |title=Philosophy of Language}}
* [http://sprachlogik.blogspot.com/ Sprachlogik] short articles in the philosophies of logic and language.
* [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/contents.htm Glossary of Linguistic terms].
* [http://linguistics.concordia.ca/i-language/ What is I-language?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706173454/http://linguistics.concordia.ca/i-language/ |date=2011-07-06 }} – Chapter 1 of I-language: An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science.
* The [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/ London Philosophy Study Guide] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090923081848/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/Language.htm |date=2009-09-23 }} offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject: [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/Language.htm Philosophy of Language].
* Carnap, R., (1956). Meaning and Necessity: a Study in Semantics and Modal Logic. University of Chicago Press.
* Collins, John. (2001). Truth Conditions Without Interpretation. [http://www.sorites.org/Issue_13/collins.htm].
* Devitt, Michael and Hanley, Richard, eds. (2006) The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Blackwell.
* Greenberg, Mark and Harman, Gilbert. (2005). Conceptual Role Semantics. [http://www.princeton.edu/~harman/Papers/CRS.pdf].
* Hale, B. and Crispin Wright, Ed. (1999). Blackwell Companions To Philosophy. Malden, Massachusetts, Blackwell Publishers.
* {{cite book |first=Daniela |last=Isac |author2=Charles Reiss |title=I-language: An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science, 2nd edition |url=https://archive.org/details/ilanguageintrodu00dani |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-953420-3}}
* Lepore, Ernest and Barry C. Smith (eds). (2006). [https://archive.today/2013.01.14-053128/http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-925941-0 The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language]. Oxford University Press.
* Lycan, W. G. (2008). [https://books.google.com/books?id=j94wa55sCU8C Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction]. New York, Routledge.
* Miller, James. (1999). [https://web.archive.org/web/20051112134830/http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/1999m12.1/msg00185.htm PEN-L message, Bad writing].
* Searle, John (2007). [https://web.archive.org/web/20120307004122/http://www.revel.inf.br/site2007/_pdf/8/entrevistas/revel_8_interview_john_searle.pdf Philosophy of Language]: an interview with John Searle.
* Stainton, Robert J. (1996). [https://archive.org/details/philosophicalper0000stai ''Philosophical Perspectives on Language'']. Peterborough, Ont., Broadview Press.
* Tarski, Alfred. (1944). "[http://www.ditext.com/tarski/tarski.html The Semantical Conception of Truth]".
* {{cite book
| author= Turri, John.
|year=2016
|title= Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion: An Essay in Philosophical Science
|publisher= Open Book Publishers
|doi=10.11647/OBP.0083
|isbn=978-1-78374-183-0
|url=  http://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/397/knowledge-and-the-norm-of-assertion--an-essay-in-philosophical-science/42469331bb1d787aa245c5b76c49762d
|doi-access=free
}}
* Eco, Umberto. ''Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language''. Indiana University Press, 1986, {{ISBN|0253203988}}, {{ISBN|9780253203984}}.

== References ==
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{{Philosophy topics}}
{{philosophy of language}}
{{analytic philosophy}}


[[Category:Philosophy of language| ]]

{{Sourceattribution|Philosophy of language}}