Blackwell Reference Online

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L ogic, philosophy of language A sentence is a group of words ( symbols, signs ) ordered according to some grammatical rule in any natural or artificial language. Sentences of various grammatical forms are best suited to indicate, plead, request, order, interrogate and so on, although such sentences can also be used outside their primary functions. A sentence is not necessarily meaningful, and the same sentence may have different meanings and may be used in different ways. All these characteristics make it difficult to determine in the abstract whether a given sentence is true or false or even whether in principle it is verifiable. Philosophers therefore introduce the term “proposition” for abstract objects that are expressed by sentences and which bear truth-values. A proposition can in principle be expressed by a sentence, but not all sentences express propositions. Once sentences and propositions are distinguished, philosophers ask how features of meaning and truth should be divided between the two, which is the vehicle for asserting or denying, for stating that some predicate holds of some subject or that certain items are related in a certain way. A proposition can be expressed by grammatically different sentences or by sentences in different languages, so long as the sentences have the same content. For instance, “A conquered B” and “B was conquered by A” ... log in or subscribe to read full text