Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

On a predominant view, reference and truth are primarily ‘semantic’ notions, not grammatical ones. Yet we know from comparative studies that reference differs fundamentally in different species, and that it acquires a very specific and systematic format in the only grammatical species, i.e. us. This leads to the question what role exactly grammar plays in the organization of meaning. One radical view would be that it plays none: in principle, all of semantics is there without it. At the other extreme would be the view that it makes no sense to speak about meaning in the absence of a (grammatically structured) language. Since both extremes are wrong, it is an important task to find a principled reason to go for some position in the middle. The problem is that generative grammar has given notions such as reference and truth no central role in the theory of grammar. Against this view I will argue that these are inherently grammatical notions, and that, in fact, they provide us with a key to the evolution of language as such.