proposition (n.)

A term derived from philosophy, where its status is controversial, and often used in LINGUISTICS as part of a GRAMMATICAL or SEMANTIC analysis. It is normally understood to refer to the SENSE of a DECLARATIVE SENTENCE, with all AMBIGUITY, VAGUENESS and DEIXIS resolved, so that a definite TRUTH VALUE may be assigned. An atomic proposition is one which does not have other propositions as parts; it is usually analyzed as consisting of a single PREDICATE with an appropriate number of ARGUMENTS. In POSSIBLE-WORLDS SEMANTICS, a proposition is regarded as a set of possible worlds (or world–time pairs). The propositional calculus is a system for representing propositions (or sentences, or STATEMENTS) in formal NOTATION, with a set of semantic or deductive rules used for proving examples of LOGICAL CONSEQUENCE, LOGICAL TRUTH, etc. Propositional logic deals only with those aspects of logic which do not require an analysis of the internal structure of atomic propositions, and standardly includes an analysis of the TRUTH FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVES. It is weaker than the more complex PREDICATE calculus. In linguistics, the interest is primarily in the way in which different linguistic FORMS can be shown to express the same proposition (e.g. The cat ate the meat, The meat was eaten by the cat, and so on), and how a single linguistic form can be analyzed in terms of several propositions (e.g. Those nice red apples cost a lot expresses the propositions that ‘the apples cost a lot’, ‘the apples are nice’ and ‘the apples are red’). The notion of ‘proposition’ is fundamental to CASE GRAMMAR, where it is used as one of the two main UNDERLYING CONSTITUENTS of sentences (Sentence ⇒ Modality+ Proposition): each proposition is analyzed in terms of a predicate word and its associated ARGUMENTS (i.e. case roles). Also of interest is the distinction to be made between the propositional meaning of a sentence on the one hand, and the use made of the sentence (e.g. in various SPEECH-ACT situations) on the other. Linguists are not primarily concerned with the evaluation of a proposition in terms of truth-values, nor with the question of the referential or cognitive status of the notion.