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Questions tagged [philosophy-of-language]

for philosophical questions concerning the nature, origins, and usage of natural language

The philosophy of language (Wikipedia) deals with the nature, origins, and usage of natural language. It explores the nature of linguistic truth and meaning, theories of reference, the cognition of language, pragmatics, and other topics.

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Could we rank languages, saying one is superior to the other?

Now and then I am faced with claims that language A is better than B, because of some grammar rules or words or ... But is there really a standard or a method to analyse a language from different perspectives and then rank it? Possibly: (suggestions…
azerafati
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Is Language infinite?

Can a Natural Language (like English for instance) describe anything? Are our thoughts limited by our language? If the number of words in a Natural Language is a finite set, can this set describe an infinite number of concepts, notions or ideas? Is…
Haider Atrah
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Why can't agreeing be an explicit performative?

I'm having a hard time determining when an utterance passes the thereby-test and thus can be considered to be an explicit performative. An utterance in the first-person singular indicative noncontinuous present is an explicit performative if and…
Steven Jeuris
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Question re connection between language and knowledge

Humans were/are learning about nature via identifying, observing and studying objects and relations between those objects. At the same time humans were/are assigning names to those identified objects (nouns) and observed relations (verbs), thus…
Alex
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Language and Technological Superiority

Think about the English language: it is very simple, consisting of only 26 letters. And to my understanding, European languages have finite alphabets as well. Now compare that to Chinese, which has no alphabet but instead thousands of characters -…
George Newton
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Are there any two languages which have been interpreted to different forms from speech?

I have absolutely no idea where to begin with this question, but I think I can summarise it in such a way that someone might know the answer. The exact thing I'm looking at is if two people met and one person taught the other how to speak their…
XtrmJosh
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What are the uses of language in thought?

In Bertrand Russell's Analysis of Mind, after he gave only a few examples, he wrote "But it is unnecessary to prolong the catalogue of the uses of language in thought." At the height of excitement, I was hugely disappointed by this abrupt end. Now…
George Chen
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What is the philosophy of words in languages?

It has always been a question for me that when we humans did not have a language to communicate with each other and then we needed to create a language to communicate with each other, how exactly did we create words for objects and different things…
user42122
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How can two phrases refer to the same object, but have different meanings?

Source: Lecture 1-5 (transcription), ... How to Reason and Argue, by Prof W Sinnott-Armstrong The following is from a question that pops up during the video at 3 min 14 seconds. [Question:] When a word DOES describe or refer to an object, is the…
user5306