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Expressions and Their Meanings

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Pragmatic Logic

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 62))

Abstract

The rustle of leaves, the singing of birds, the noise of a passing motorcar we hear. The expressions of a language of which we have command we not only hear, but also understand. It is not easy to explain in what the understanding of an expression consists. The same kind of response to an expression heard is not always called the understanding of that expression. It is very often said that a person understood a given word when the hearing of that word intertwined in his mind with a thought about an object other than the word in question. For instance, a person who knows Latin thinks about the Earth on hearing the word “terra”; he thinks that the Earth is round on hearing the statement “terra est rotunda”. But it is not always required that the hearing of a word should in a person’s mind intertwine with a thought about an object other than the word in question when it is said that that person understood that word. It will be said, for instance, that we understand the word “whether”, as it occurs, e.g., in “I do not know whether he will be here”, even though on hearing that word we do not direct our thoughts toward any object other than the word in question.

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© 1974 PWN—Polish Scientific Publishers—Warszawa

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Ajdukiewicz, K. (1974). Expressions and Their Meanings. In: Pragmatic Logic. Synthese Library, vol 62. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2109-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2109-8_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-2111-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-010-2109-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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