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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Dear Vladimir and everybody on this list,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">I agree with you and Stef that many linguists (regardless to which “camp” they may assign themselves) use the notion ‘proposition’ or ‘propositional content’ in a rather
sloppy way, and that sometimes one gets the impression as if ‘propositional content’ is accepted and self-explaining. [By the way, this could be said of many other terms, or expressions, in the linguistic literature.] However, I also fully subscribe under
what Alex has just posted in reply to your question, and I’m grateful to him for this marvellous presentation and all the references (revealing, for me at least, that Bally just stood on Thomas Aquinas’ barks).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"> Whether this fully explains what ‘propositional content’ is to mean, I’m not sure, though. As far as I know, approaches to the matter like Dik’s (FG,
then FDG) have been continued and developed, first of all, by Kasper Boye. And the shortest way to capture ‘proposition = propositional content’ is this: propositions are state-of-affairs (SoAs) couched with referential anchors. Thus, SoAs can be defined as
ontological objects (Lyons’ second-order objects) that may occur in space and time, but which yet don’t have any anchorage in a “world” specified, e.g., by ‘here and now (as I’m speaking)’, ‘yesterday (when we met)’ or by something like ‘during last year’s
SLE conference’. SoAs practically amount to predicate-argument-structure (whose descriptions may be found in well-conceived dictionaries or lists of valency requirements of predicative expressions), or to eventualities (in the sense of serious theories on
actionality features in verb or clause semantics), but to nothing more. Thus, you cannot say whether some SoA is ‘true/false’ or not (in a logical tradition), or whether you support them as an epistemic subject (in a typological-functional framework), because
you don’t know where to locate it; briefly: it lacks reference. That is, only propositions can be objects (Lyons’ third-order objects) of epistemic judgments (see the modus of Thomas Aquinas/Bally in Alex’ mail), i.e. you cannot doubt, deny, assume, etc.,
any abstract SoA (= situation, eventuality) as such, but only whether it did occur (is occurring) or is likely to occur or not. Likewise, markers of indirect evidentiality (information source) operate on propositions. In practice, this is part and parcel of
Dik’s and Hengeveld’s operators on the layered structure of the clause in F(D)G, and of Cinque’s (1999) generative approach to capture scope properties of operators.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"> Thus, in short, you may test whether you are dealing with propositional content (or: whether some utterance contains propositional content) whenever you
can use an epistemic or evidential operator (including any sort of complement-taking predicate which takes its clausal complement into its scope). This is the litmus test proposed by Boye (2010; 2012, see below). You may argue that these are tests (just as
there are tests for subordination, subjecthood, etc.), and tests only check “symptoms”, but are not definitions. Here I don’t know whether anybody has proposed really something better than a definition (without saying how to test the phenomena that are meant
to be covered by it) or a battery of tests (which some day may turn out indicators of something different than they were meant to test). However, some contrasts are obvious, such as:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:54.0pt;text-indent:-36.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<![if !supportLists]><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">(i)<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">imperatives and any kind of directive speech act don’t have any propositional content;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:54.0pt;text-indent:-36.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<![if !supportLists]><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">(ii)<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">factive predicates (e.g., “I regret that P”) presuppose that what they scope over are propositions. This includes mirative utterances (e.g., “You can’t come.
What a pity!”, or better: “Really?, you can’t come …”)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Problems may arise with complements of predicates denoting direct perception. For instance, “We see them cross(ing) the street”
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">ā</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"> does “crossing the street” convey a proposition? The usual tests would lead to
a negative answer: “We see them *probably crossing the street”, etc. Although this somehow appears counterintuitive (despite the test), since, after all, direct perception lends strong support for the observed event being real (i.e. happening here and now
in relation to the reference interval). Compare with: “Look! They are crossing the street.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"> Moreover, there are many indicators that, in the structure of natural languages, interlocutors do make a difference between utterance that convey a proposition
(= propositional content) and those which do not (these still convey illocutionary force, but no propositions; compare the already mentioned directive speech acts). For instance, Slavic languages are astonishingly consistent in their patterns of clausal complementation
when it comes to distinguishing cognition-related and volition-related complements (and whatever might correspond to them in syntactically independent clauses). The former operate on propositions, the latter only on SoAs (both types carry, of course, some
illocutionary force). However, going into this issue would mean to make this already long mail considerably longer. If you are interested you may give me a sign, and I can send you (anybody who wishes) more on this issue.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"> After all, the core message I wanted to convey is: ‘propositional content’ (and anything it may contrast with) have been neatly defined in both the logical
literature (see Lyons and Alex’ mail) and the functional-typologist literature (starting probably with Dik, but then continued by Hengeveld and Boye), and the latter has supplied some means to diagnose whether an utterance contains a proposition or not. But
these tests are not always waterproof and leave questions, and they are not always easy to apply cross-linguistically, but also (notabene) for earlier stages of languages or in fieldwork. Here, this notion shares a fate similar with other semantic notions
and notions referring to structural design (like alignment, embeddedness or dependence etc.). As with these notions, propositional content might well turn out as a kind of syndrome, an outcome of very complex relations which cannot be accessed directly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">If you want me to send reference, let me know.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Björn.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Boye, Kasper. 2010. Evidence for what? Evidentiality and scope. In Bjorn Wiemer & Katerina<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Stathi (eds.),
<i>Database on evidentiality markers in European languages</i>, 290–307. Berlin:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Akademie Verlag. [<i>STUF – Language Typology and Universals
</i>63 (4)].<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Boye, Kasper. 2012.
<i>Epistemic meaning: A crosslinguistic and functional-cognitive study</i>. </span>
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Berlin<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">& Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Vladimir Panov via Lingtyp<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, October 25, 2025 3:00 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Dear typologists,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In various traditions of linguistics, both "formal" and "functional", there is a habit to speak of "propositional content". I have a feeling that this term is very difficult to define, especially if one takes cross-linguistic
variation seriously. In practice, many linguistis tend to use the term as if the reader knew exactly what it means. Needles to say, the term has a long and complex history.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Are you aware of any relatively up-to-date and possibly typllogy-friendly literature which discusses this problem?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Thank you,<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Vladimir<o:p></o:p></p>
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