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Full Idea
Our interest in the parts of sentences is derivative; we recognise at once that sentences are effective linguistic units, while we must figure out or decide what constitutes the meaningful words and particles.
Gist of Idea
We recognise sentences at once as linguistic units; we then figure out their parts
Source
Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], Intro)
Book Ref
Davidson,Donald: 'Truth and Predication' [Belknap Harvard 2005], p.1
A Reaction
It depends on whether linguistic priority goes to complete thoughts that require expression, or to naming and ostensive definition to relate to elements of the environment. I find it hard to have a strong view on this one. Just So stories?
| 1773 | A sentence always has signification, but a word by itself never does [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 13467 | Leibniz was the first modern to focus on sentence-sized units (where empiricists preferred word-size) [Leibniz, by Hart,WD] |
| 8646 | Words in isolation seem to have ideas as meanings, but words have meaning in propositions [Frege] |
| 7732 | Never ask for the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition [Frege] |
| 8446 | We understand new propositions by constructing their sense from the words [Frege] |
| 18705 | Words function only in propositions, like levers in a machine [Wittgenstein] |
| 21700 | Taking sentences as the unit of meaning makes useful paraphrasing possible [Quine] |
| 21701 | Knowing a word is knowing the meanings of sentences which contain it [Quine] |
| 8170 | Sentences are the primary semantic units, because they can say something [Dummett] |
| 19131 | We recognise sentences at once as linguistic units; we then figure out their parts [Davidson] |
| 3588 | Foundationalists base meaning in words, coherentists base it in sentences [Williams,M] |