[Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
Östen Dahl
oesten at ling.su.se
Sun Oct 26 12:59:08 UTC 2025
Dear all,
Notice that if we choose to separate propositional content from what Alex calls “DMP” in order to make it a context-free property of a sentence, it can no longer be seen as something that is true or false or is what “propositional attitudes” such as belief are about. So we probably need another term than “proposition” for that.
Östen
Från: Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>
Skickat: den 26 oktober 2025 13:33
Till: Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com>
Kopia: Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>; Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>; Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se>; LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
Ämne: Re: [Lingtyp] What is propositional content?
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<http://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<http://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>
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<mailto: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<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>>
Cc: Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de<mailto:wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>>, Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se<mailto:oesten at ling.su.se>>, Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com<mailto:alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>>, LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Web: 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<mailto:wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>>
Date: Saturday, October 25, 2025 at 14:11
To: Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se<mailto:oesten at ling.su.se>>, Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>>, Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com<mailto:alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>>, Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com<mailto:panovmeister at gmail.com>>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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<mailto:oesten at ling.su.se>>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2025 4:59 PM
To: Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de<mailto:wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>>; Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>>; Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com<mailto:alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>>; Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com<mailto:panovmeister at gmail.com>>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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<mailto:wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>>
Skickat: den 25 oktober 2025 16:42
Till: Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>>; Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se<mailto:oesten at ling.su.se>>; Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com<mailto:alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>>; Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com<mailto:panovmeister at gmail.com>>
Kopia: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:oesten at ling.su.se>>; Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com<mailto:alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>>; Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com<mailto:panovmeister at gmail.com>>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Web: 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<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Östen Dahl via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
Date: Saturday, October 25, 2025 at 09:26
To: Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com<mailto:alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>>, Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com<mailto:panovmeister at gmail.com>>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:panovmeister at gmail.com>>
Kopia: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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:
[cid:image001.png at 01DC467F.30FA4050]
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:
[cid:image002.png at 01DC467F.30FA4050]
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):
[cid:image003.png at 01DC467F.30FA4050]
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):
[cid:image004.png at 01DC467F.30FA4050]
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<mailto: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<mailto: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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