[Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
Alex Francois
alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com
Sun Oct 26 12:33:05 UTC 2025
Dear Vladimir,
Thanks for clarifying what you had in mind.
The way you formulate your question apparently rests on the assumption
(which you rightfully challenge) that "propositional content" has been
claimed -- or is generally understood -- to be the core of a sentence, the
part that remains stable when a sentence is translated from lg A to lg B.
In case anybody has claimed that, I think they would be using the notion of
"propositional content" wrongly.
Besides propositional content [PC], let us also call, for the time being,
"deixis, modality and pragmatics" [DMP] the various operators that attach
to a PC to turn it into a valid utterance. While the traditional view has
been to reduce the DMP to a single concept (Aquinas' *modus*, Searle's
*illocutionary
force*, Antoine Culioli's *opérateurs énonciatifs*, etc.), the situation is
in fact more complex, and Dik was surely correct to posit several levels.
But since this discussion is about "propositional content", we can
temporarily use a single "DMP" label for *whatever is not the PC* in an
utterance.
(Incidentally, I agree with Östen that the boundary between the dictum and
the modus, or between the PC and the DMP, is often not as clear as
logicians seem to put it, because the structure is in fact recursive: as
soon as the modus is made lexically explicit, it becomes part of the
dictum. But this is a separate discussion.)
Most of the time, translational equivalents across languages will share the
same PC and the same DMP.
However, just like you suggest, there are many cases when translational
equivalents actually differ in their propositional contents.
This is especially true if we define the PC based on a literal
representation of the semantic content of the clause.
Take the example of experiential expressions of emotions like fear.
Imagine a situation involving a sharp-toothed, large shark and a group of
swimmers --- which the speaker retrospectively reports on.
English would encode part of the scene as
(1) *They were scared*,
where the grammatical subject of the predicate 'be scared' is the
experiencer;
we may propose that the PC here is <they be.scared (by.it)>.
Mwotlap (Oceanic) would encode the same situation as (2):
(2) *Na-mtēgteg ni-qal kēy.*
Art-*fear *3sg:AO-strike 3pl
lit. 'Fear struck them' [≈'They were scared']
where the grammatical subject is *fear itself*, and the experiencer
is encoded as an object.
The stimulus (shark, situation) is left implicit, but can be retrieved from
the context (as in English); it may be encoded as an adjunct (*Na-mtēgteg
ni-qal kēy aē*. 'Fear struck them about it').
Japanese would rather say (3):
(3) *Kowa-sou datta*.
*scary*-Evid Cop:Past
lit. 'It was evidently scary (to them)' [≈'They were scared']
Here the grammatical subject is the stimulus (shark, situation...)
even though it is usually not encoded lexically in this construction; yet
the only NP that can be encoded with nominative *ga* here would be the
shark, not the swimmers: this confirms that a literal translation of
*kowa(i)* is "scary" rather than "scared". The experiencer itself is
routinely left implicit in this construction, as usually happens in
Japanese; it could be encoded as a topic (using *wa)*. The speaker here
must use the evidential suffix *-sou* to report on the experiencer's
emotions; this is obligatory in Japanese -- unless the speaker was one of
the scared swimmers, and lived to tell the story.
Note that these three sentences:
- are well-formed & idiomatic in their respective languages
- are good translational equivalents, aiming at the same communicative
effect
- share the same DMP: they share the same illocutionary force (they're
all affirmative statements), the same deictic coordinates and pragmatic
intent, etc.
Now the question you rightfully ask is: Do these 3 sentences share the
same propositional content?
Well, this is where views may differ among us. Some linguists may decide
to ignore the differences among cross-linguistic strategies, and decide
that "underlyingly" these 3 sentences express the same propositional
content. That shared PC could be captured using an abstract representation,
something like *scare(shark, swimmers)*, with no commitment as to the
final argument structure.
Other linguists may propose to express the PC using a clausal structure,
e.g. based on the English construction <they be.scared (by.it)> (but why
take English as the reference?).
Alternatively, we may want to take cross-linguistic differences seriously,
and propose that each of these translational equivalents has in fact a
different propositional content:
- English <they be.scared>
- Mwotlap <fear strike them>
- Japanese <(it) be.scary (evidently)>
If we follow this route, then the answer to your question will be
positive:
> *Is it not the case that our idea of propositional content is biased by
the structure of certain languages, as is often the case in linguistics?*
Indeed, sentences in different languages can be translational equivalents,
and yet differ in propositional content --- if we agree to define the
latter based on the (literal) organisation of each language's grammar.
In this sense, propositional content is probably what varies the most in
translation, and best reflects cross-linguistic idiosyncrasies. What I
called DMP (the modus ~ modality + illocutionary force, etc.) tends to be
more stable than PC, which has a greater potential for cross-linguistic
variation.
__________
I will just finish with another example, which shows that translational
equivalents can involve a change both in PC *and* in DMP.
If I watch a group of swimmers and suddenly see a shark approaching, in
English I could say
(4) *Beware!*
using a [+control] verb in the active voice and in the imperative, endowed
with a directive illocutionary force.
Mwotlap would basically do the same, using an imperative verb, preceded by
an imperative pronoun:
(5) *Ami egoy!*
Imper:2pl beware
“Beware!”
As for Japanese, it would not use a verb in the imperative, but resort to
what is literally a statement, involving a predicative adjective:
(6) *Abuna-i!*
dangerous-Adj:Present
lit. '(it's) dangerous!' (≈“Beware!”)
If we take (6) literally, we see that Japanese here encodes not only a
different propositional content <it be.dangerous>, but also a different
illocutionary force: it's a statement rather than an imperative.
What is crucial is that (4) and (6) share the same communicative intent,
and aim at the same perlocutionary effect
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlocutionary_act> (Austin 1962) --- i.e.
they form the most idiomatic way to efficiently warn the addressee of an
imminent danger, and have them act in consequence. One could also say
that, in terms of illocutionary force, (6) is literally a statement, but it
is interpreted as a directive ("Swim away!") through an indirect speech act
(Searle 1975).
So in short, Vladimir, I agree with you. In order to achieve the same
communicative goal, languages can differ in their strategies, both in terms
of propositional content and of illocutionary force.
best
Alex
------------------------------
Alex François
LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS
<https://www.cnrs.fr/en> — <https://www.cnrs.fr/en> ENS
<https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
–PSL <https://www.psl.eu/en> — Sorbonne nouvelle
<http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
<http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
<http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
Australian National University
<https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/alex-francois>
Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
_________________________________________
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2025 at 08:10
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
To: Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Cc: Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>, Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se>,
Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>,
LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Dear colleagues,
Thank you for your very interesting and detailed responses.
I will now specify a little bit more why I asked my question and what
aspects seem contorversial to me. In may original email, I stressed the
importance of cross-linguistic diversity. I wonder whether propositional
content, if we assume its existence, is a langauge-specific or a
cross-linguistic phenomenon. As we know, different languages have different
structures and tend to obligatorily express different semantic features.
For example, does the Italian utterance (1) and the Russian uttrance (2)
have the same propositional content, or, in other words, do they describe
the same state of affairs?
(1) *Me lo dar-ai?*
1sg.dat 3sg.acc give-fut.2sg
(2) *Da-š?*
give.pfv-prs.2sg
'Will you give it to me?'
I am not sure this example is an ideal one, one can probably find semething
more illustrative. It illustrates that utterances which could be naturally
uttered in almost identical speach situations differ drammatically across
languages in what elements they consist of. While theme and recipient
referential phrases are obligatory in Italian, one can perfectly do without
them in Russian. One can also think of „radical pro-drop“ languages like
those of East and Southeast Asia where it is likely that no argument at all
is overtly expressed either as a referential phrase or as a bound marker.
In Italian, the future tense is used, whereas in Russian the perfective
present form has a default future interpretation. Nevertheless, (1) is an
adequate translation of (2). Do these utterances „describe“ the same „state
of affairs“? After all, does a „state of affairs“ have clear boundaries?
Where does it end and where does its „packaging“ begin, having in mind that
different languages highlight very different aspects and features of
seemingly „the same“ situation? Where is the propositional content here?
Is it not the case that our idea of propositional content is biased by the
structure of certain languages, as is often the case in linguistics? It
looks like sometimes what is assumed to be the propositional content is a
typical European clause minus modal, epistemic or evidential markers.
Needless to say, the hierarchies of obligatorily of most frequently
expressed categories can be very different from the typical European ones.
Thank you,
Vladimir
On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 3:24 AM Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu> wrote:
> Dear Björn — As you know, a propositional analysis of illocutionary forces
> was attempted by the early Generative Semanticists. If memory serves (no, I
> wasn’t around then; I mean, if memory serves from stuff I’ve read about the
> GS days), this approach was known as the ‘performative’ analysis. So under
> this style of analysis, a question like *Is it raining?* would be derived
> (literally syntactically derived, mind you) from an underlying *I ask you
> whether it is raining*. The problem with that is of course that the
> “surface” sentence *I ask you whether it is raining* is in fact an
> assertion, so has a different illocutionary force.
>
> What is the tl;dr here? Illocutionary forces - speech act meanings in the
> sense of Austin and Searle - are apparently *not* of propositional
> nature. To understand this, compare them to, say, honorifics: it’s not that
> you could roughly paraphrase the meaning of an honorific propositionally;
> it’s that doing so wouldn’t have the same *effect* as using the
> honorific. That effect - the expression of respect or solidarity or what
> have you - is precisely the non-propositional meaning.
>
> It’s the same with speech acts: you can paraphrase them propositionally,
> GS-style or otherwise; but the result doesn’t have the same effect -
> precisely the illocutionary point, which is itself not a propositional
> meaning.
>
> HTH! — Juergen
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
> Email: *jb77 at buffalo.edu <jb77 at buffalo.edu>*
> Web: *http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
> <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/>*
>
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585
> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
>
> --
>
>
> *From: *Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>
> *Date: *Saturday, October 25, 2025 at 14:11
> *To: *Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se>, Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>,
> Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>, Vladimir Panov <
> panovmeister at gmail.com>
> *Cc: *LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> *Subject: *RE: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
>
> Dear Östen, Dear All,
>
> thanks for this making it more precise! However, then we seem to arrive at
> the question whether modal (more precisely: epistemic) operators are parts
> of propositions or operate on them. If you argue for the latter, then your
> (or logicians’) point of view is justified: it is the epistemic operators
> which take scope over one another (and thus create recursiveness). However,
> since the operators scope over propositional content (and there may be only
> “one” such content per clause), this anyway amounts to the possibility of
> chaining clauses with recursively inserted propositional content (which
> these operators comment on, or restrict if you like).
>
> I don’t know whether this helps Vladimir. It seems that
> these problems (and their possible “diagnosis”) exist everywhere and are
> rather independent of the structure of particular languages. That is, which
> criteria might there be for crosslinguistic variation, to be tested on
> empirical grounds?
>
>
>
> Notably, it is intriguing that your example concerning possible
> recursivity of illocutionary force (“Björn commented on Östen’s comment on
> Alex’s comment on Vladimir’s posting.”) is based on assertive speech acts;
> these contain propositions (or at least imply them in the hidden content of
> the nouns/NPs “comment” and “posting”). What about other speech acts, e.g.,
> commands or wishes (which do not contain propositions)? Would that be
> something like “Tell him that he posts a message for her to finally submit
> her paper”, or “I wish you longed for your friends to want you all the
> best”?
>
> Are there any patterns for morphosyntactic coding of such
> things that may used to classify constructions and to compare languages?
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Björn.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se>
> *Sent:* Saturday, October 25, 2025 4:59 PM
> *To:* Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>; Juergen Bohnemeyer <
> jb77 at buffalo.edu>; Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>; Vladimir
> Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Subject:* Sv: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I think it is not propositional content that is recursive, it’s rather
> modal operators that are (in modal logic) functions from propositions to
> propositions and thus can be recursive. And illocutionary forces are not
> operators in that sense but rather properties of speech acts. But if you
> imagine an operator that takes you from one speech act to another you could
> get something more like modal operators. Try “comment”. “Björn commented on
> Östen’s comment on Alex’s comment on Vladimir’s posting”.
>
>
>
> Östen
>
>
>
> *Från:* Wiemer, Bjoern <*wiemerb at uni-mainz.de <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>*>
> *Skickat:* den 25 oktober 2025 16:42
> *Till:* Juergen Bohnemeyer <*jb77 at buffalo.edu <jb77 at buffalo.edu>*>; Östen
> Dahl <*oesten at ling.su.se <oesten at ling.su.se>*>; Alex Francois <*alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com
> <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>*>; Vladimir Panov <*panovmeister at gmail.com
> <panovmeister at gmail.com>*>
> *Kopia:* *LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>*
> *Ämne:* RE: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
>
>
>
> Dear All,
>
> just a small comment on Östen’s and Jürgen’s remarks. Don’t they lead to
> the conclusion that propositional content is recursive (just like embedding
> may be recursive)? That is, there is, then, a theoretically infinite
> inclusion of propositions in propositions (as “objects” of mental acts, and
> of speech acts reporting on mental acts):
>
>
>
> 1. It is probable [that it is likely [that x said [that presumably [y
> claimed [that … ]]]]]
>
>
>
> I wonder whether the same could be done with illocutionary force. I guess
> that it cannot. And if not I wonder why this might be so.
>
> Does anybody know why this might be so?
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Björn.
>
>
>
> *From:* Lingtyp <*lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>*> *On Behalf Of *Juergen
> Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp
> *Sent:* Saturday, October 25, 2025 4:25 PM
> *To:* Östen Dahl <*oesten at ling.su.se <oesten at ling.su.se>*>; Alex Francois
> <*alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>*>; Vladimir
> Panov <*panovmeister at gmail.com <panovmeister at gmail.com>*>
> *Cc:* *LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>*
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
>
>
>
> Dear all — I had the same reaction as Östen - for me, the meaning of modal
> operators is also ‘propositional’, although it is of course distinct from
> that of their prejacent propositions.
>
>
>
> So what, then, is propositional content (if anything)? I think the term
> has its uses primarily in contexts in which we contrast meanings that can
> be spelled out in terms of propositions (i.e., representations of states of
> affairs that can be true or false and may be objects of propositional
> attitudes such as belief and doubt) against meanings that cannot be spelled
> out in this manner.
>
>
>
> Take the meaning of color terms. According to the theory of color
> semantics developed by Paul Kay and collaborators, the literal meaning (as
> opposed to associated metaphors) of the word *green* is a sensory quality
> with a prototype ('focal green’) that is neurophysiologically encoded. We
> can certainly express propositions about green things, and even focal green
> (I just did) - but these propositions can never accurately capture or
> define the meaning of *green*.
>
>
>
> Now, some are strongly invested in the view that *all* meaning is
> propositional content. Perhaps the most prominent scholar of this
> persuasion is Anna Wierzbicka. Here is Wierzbicka’s (1996: 306) analysis of
> green:
>
>
>
> X is green. =
>
> in some places many things grow out of the ground
>
> when one sees things like X one can think of this.
>
>
>
> I think everybody can judge for themselves whether they find this analysis
> convincing.
>
>
>
> In my view, there is quite a range of linguistic meanings that cannot
> adequately be captured in propositional terms. Aside from color terms and
> other expressions of sensory perception, I would add for example ideophones
> (not necessarily all of them, especially not when you take ‘ideophone’ as
> the label of a language-specific category of expressions), expressives,
> honorifics and other social deictics, and so on. I would go as far as to
> suggest that even manner of motion verbs such as *walk* and *run* have
> meanings that we understand because our motor system knows how to engage in
> these activities, not because we can define them propositionally.
>
>
>
> Where to draw the boundary between propositional and non-propositional
> content has long been a fascinating question to me. There’s much more I
> could say about this, but I’ll stop here as I’m sure people have stopped
> reading a while ago 😉
>
>
>
> Best — Juergen
>
>
>
> Wierzbicka, A. (1996). Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
>
>
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
> Email: *jb77 at buffalo.edu <jb77 at buffalo.edu>*
> Web: *http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
> <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/>*
>
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585
> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
>
> --
>
>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <*lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>*> on behalf of Östen Dahl via
> Lingtyp <*lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>*>
> *Date: *Saturday, October 25, 2025 at 09:26
> *To: *Alex Francois <*alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com
> <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>*>, Vladimir Panov <*panovmeister at gmail.com
> <panovmeister at gmail.com>*>
> *Cc: **LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>* <*LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>*>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
>
> Dear Vladimir, Alex, and all others,
>
>
>
> I think a logician would say that a sentence with “a modal comment” like
> (1) in Alex’s posting contains not one proposition but two: (i) the
> proposition that the supermarket is open on Sundays, (ii) the proposition
> that (i) might be true. Both (i) and (ii) are entities that can be true or
> false. But this means that the propositional content of (1) is (ii) rather
> than (i), since that is what is expressed by the whole sentence and what
> the speaker claims is true.
>
>
>
> There is a tradition in linguistics to do things the way Alex proposes. I
> don’t know where it originally came from, but Fillmore in his 1968 paper
> “The Case for Case” divides the basic structure of sentence into a
> “proposition” and a “modality constituent”. The difference between
> logicians and linguists may be that logicians tend to think of modal
> notions as objective while linguists regard them as subjective. The problem
> is that modalities may differ in this regard. This could be a long
> discussion, but I will stop here.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Östen
>
>
>
> *Från:* Lingtyp <*lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>*> *För *Alex Francois via
> Lingtyp
> *Skickat:* den 25 oktober 2025 13:16
> *Till:* Vladimir Panov <*panovmeister at gmail.com <panovmeister at gmail.com>*>
> *Kopia:* *LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>*
> *Ämne:* Re: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
>
>
>
> Dear Vladimir,
>
>
>
> Thanks for an interesting question.
>
>
>
> In my understanding, the notion of "propositional content" stems from the
> logical analysis of language. It reflects the attempt to isolate, in an
> utterance, the reported state-of-affairs from what the speaker says about
> it.
>
> Thus if I say (1) *The supermarket might even be open on Sundays*, one
> can propose to mentally separate:
>
> - the propositional content X:
> <the supermarket being open on Sundays>
> - the modal comment about that content X:
> <X might be true> = <it is possible for X to be true>
>
> Now if we compare (1) with
>
> (2) *There is no way the supermarket would be open on Sundays*,
>
> we may say that both utterances share the exact same *propositional
> content* X, but they include a different modal stance about it.
>
> In the case of (2), the modal comment would be <there's no way that X is
> true> = <it is necessary for X to be false>.
>
> ________
>
> The first author, I believe, to have formalised similar concepts is Thomas
> Aquinas ~ Tommaso d'Aquino (13th century), in his short *De
> propositionibus modalibus* ['On modal propositions'] (which might be
> apocryphal). I found the original text *here
> <https://www.corpusthomisticum.org/dpp.html>* in Latin; a French
> translation *here
> <http://docteurangelique.free.fr/bibliotheque/opuscules/39lespropositionsmodales.htm>*;
> *Uckelman (2009: 157-9)
> <https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/2074/1/DS-2009-04.text.pdf#page=173>* has
> an English translation.
>
>
>
> Aquinas contrasted the *dictum* ["what is said" ≈propositional content]
> from the *modus* [the 'manner', i.e. what is said about the dictum]. His
> examples included:
>
> (3) *Necesse est Socratem currere. *“For Socrates to run is necessarily
> true.”
>
> (4) *Possibile est Socratem currere. *“For Socrates to run is possible.”,
>
> etc.
>
>
>
> In a passage which I find incredibly modern, Aquinas notes that polarity
> can affect sometimes the dictum, sometimes the modus:
>
> In (5) *Possibile est Socratem non currere* “It is possible for Socrates
> not to run”, the negation is internal to the dictum.
>
> In (6) *Non possibile est Socratem currere* “It is not possible for
> Socrates to run”, the negation is a property of the modus.
>
>
>
> (Orig. quote: *Item sciendum est quod propositio modalis dicitur
> affirmativa vel negativa secundum affirmationem vel negationem modi, et non
> dicti.* which could be rendered: "Importantly, the modality will be said
> affirmative vs. negative depending on the polarity of the modus, not of the
> dictum.")
>
> ________
>
> Aquinas' proposals have played a major role in formal logic;
> they were also introduced to linguistics by French linguist Charles Bally
> in 1932 (cf. *Gosselin 2015 <https://hal.science/hal-02310043v1/>*).
>
>
>
> The word *modus* is the source of our later concepts of *mood* and
> *modality*.
>
> ________
>
> I just found an interesting paper by Per Martin-Löf “Are the objects of
> propositional attitudes propositions in the sense of propositional and
> predicate logic?” (*2003
> <https://pml.flu.cas.cz/uploads/PML-Geneva19Dec03.pdf>*) In this table,
> he compares Bally's contrast *modus* vs. *dictum* [actually from Aquinas]
> with proposals by other logicians and linguists:
>
>
>
> Löf here proposes that the term “propositional content” was mostly used by
> John Searle. I guess this refers to Searle's 1969 *Speech acts*, though
> Löf does not elaborate.
>
> Admittedly, "illocutionary force" is different from "modus", but there is
> indeed a filiation across these different notional couples.
>
> Other people on this list will be able to point to specific passages in
> Searle's works.
>
> _______
>
> Finally, another attempt to adapt similar ideas to linguistics was Simon
> Dik's Functional grammar:
>
> Dik, Simon. (1989). *The Theory of Functional Grammar. Part I: The
> Structure of the Clause* (Vol. 9). Foris.
>
>
>
> At first glance, Dik's equivalent to the *dictum* is what he calls the
> "state of affairs" (SoA), which he defines p.51:
>
>
>
> That said, Dik is worth reading because, rather than a mere binary
> contrast (such as *dictum* vs. *modus*) he proposes to distinguish
> different logical / semantic levels of the utterance, organised in a
> fine-grained hierarchy (see his p.50):
>
> Dik carefully distinguishes between SoA, possible fact, predication,
> proposition, clause...
>
> Different operators π (e.g. Tense, Aspect, Modality, Polarity, Truth
> value, Illocutionary act...), and also what he calls "satellites" σ (syntactic
> adjuncts etc), attach to different layers among these.
>
> Interestingly, Dik describes one of his layers as “propositional content”,
> which he equates with “possible fact” (p.52):
>
>
>
> See also pp.294 ff.
>
> Dik's concept of prop. content is more specific than the same term used by
> Searle or the *dictum* of other authors;
>
> In his terms, propositional content is of a "higher-order structure" than
> the core state-of-affairs.
>
> ________
>
> In my publications describing the Oceanic languages of northern Vanuatu, I
> have found such analytical tools (under the same or similar names) quite
> useful, particularly when describing tense, aspect, modality or
> illocutionary force in different languages -- whether TAMP in Mwotlap (*2003
> <https://marama.huma-num.fr/AFpub_books_e.htm#hide3:~:text=La%20S%C3%A9mantique%20du%20Pr%C3%A9dicat%20en%20Mwotlap>*,
> *f/c c <https://marama.huma-num.fr/AFpub_articles_e.htm#fcc>*), the
> Aorist in NV languages (*2009a
> <https://marama.huma-num.fr/AFpub_articles_e.htm#2009a>*), the
> Subjunctive in Hiw & Lo-Toga (*2010b
> <https://marama.huma-num.fr/AFpub_articles_e.htm#2010b>*), etc.
>
> ________
>
>
>
> I hope this is useful.
>
>
>
> best
>
> Alex
> ------------------------------
>
> Alex François
>
> *LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/>* — *CNRS
> <https://www.cnrs.fr/en>* *— <https://www.cnrs.fr/en>* *ENS
> <https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>*
> –*PSL <https://www.psl.eu/en>* — *Sorbonne nouvelle
> <http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>*
>
> *Australian National University
> <https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/alex-francois>*
>
> *Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>*
>
> _________________________________________
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: *Vladimir Panov via Lingtyp* <*lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>*>
> Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2025 at 03:00
> Subject: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
> To: <*LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>*>
>
>
>
> Dear typologists,
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Are you aware of any relatively up-to-date and possibly typllogy-friendly
> literature which discusses this problem?
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Vladimir
>
> _______________________________________________
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> *Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>*
> *https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
> <https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp>*
>
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