Logic in its application to language Author:Robert Gordon Latham Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The third Part, Member, Element, or Constituent of Propositions—the word is. § It now remains for us to ask whether these same parts, members, or elements of ... more »a proposition are more than two. It is by no means impossible to frame an intelligible sentence out of the two elements which have been the subject of the foregoing remarks alone. Indeed, children do so very often. The child says sun bright, or fire burn, and is understood. So are the up-grown men of more countries than one, in the languages of which the third part, member, or element of a proposition is omitted. It is not, however, the business of the men and women who use language to make propositions that are simply intelligible, or capable of being understood. It is their business to make propositions which cannot be misunderstood. And to do this, they must use something more than the words expressive of our two somethings. No man can conclude to a certainty that, because he sees certain words in juxtaposition, they are in a given relation to each other. No man can conclude to a certainty that they are in any relation at all. He may, indeed, make a good guess ;wbut he can do no more. There is, then, a third part, member, or element, generally found in most propositions, and without which (as will be seen hereafter) many propositions cannot be constructed. This expresses, over and above the two somethings already mentioned, an intervening link between them. In all the previous examples, this part, member, or element, has been the word is. It is coming. § In all the examples hitherto given, the author has taken care to use words of which the meaning lies on the surface and is transparently clear and visible. There can be no doubt as to the meaning of such words as bread, water, man, summer, winter, ![CD...« less