Some Remarks on the Notion ‘Universal Semantics’

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses some remarks on the notion, Universal Semantics. Two of the most important trends in recent linguistic thinking are the growing concern with semantics as a fundamental component in the system of language and the rehabilitation of universal grammar as a respectable topic of linguistic investigation. To inform philosophers about linguistic developments in a field which many of them will, not without some reason, regard as their own, and, on the other hand, to bring together and critically evaluate some of the alternative approaches to the problems of universal semantics which can be found in the literature. The remarks are divided into following four topics: (1) the notion semantic content of a linguistic expression, (2) the theoretical status of universal semantics, (3) the possible empirical content of universal semantics, and (4) the possible explanations of the existence of a universal semantics.