[The Concept of Nature by Alfred North Whitehead]@TWC D-Link book
The Concept of Nature

CHAPTER I
12/43

You may quarrel with a demonstrative phrase as in some way obnoxious to you; but if it demonstrates the right entity, the proposition is unaffected though your taste may be offended.

This suggestiveness of the phraseology is part of the literary quality of the sentence which conveys the proposition.

This is because a sentence directly conveys one proposition, while in its phraseology it suggests a penumbra of other propositions charged with emotional value.

We are now talking of the one proposition directly conveyed in any phraseology.
This doctrine is obscured by the fact that in most cases what is in form a mere part of the demonstrative gesture is in fact a part of the proposition which it is desired directly to convey.

In such a case we will call the phraseology of the proposition elliptical.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books