All,

As a theorist on the origin of language, my immediate comment is that, if 
we substitute 'statement' (and question and command) for sentence, then the 
problem vanishes. An informative statement, in which one person updates 
another about some portion of the real about them, deals, if the hearer 
accepts it, in a transformation of understanding. It does not really matter 
much how the update takes place: it can even work with a gesture or facial 
expression. However, the core of all language is this need to transform 
understanding.

Gadamer and Collingwood have both drawn attention to the fact that, because 
of this, every statement can be seen as an answer to a question, and what 
that question is will transform what the statement actually means. Take 
''The cat is on the mat', and check it against 'What is on the mat?', 
'Where is the cat?', 'What is the relation of the cat to the mat?', and 
even 'Which cat is on the mat?' where the answer is 'THE cat', that is, the 
one we have just been talking about. This is why statements can shrink to a 
few or even single words, for the hearer who gets the answer 'On the mat' 
to the question "Where is the cat?' does not need a reminder of what it is 
he or she wanted updating on.

So there is no possibility of the death of the STATEMENT: otherwise we 
would cease to communicate! The original complainant was obviously troubled 
about sentence structure and its relation to punctuation, as Bill remarked.

Edmond


Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU

Tel.: 00 - 44 - (0)1223 - 350256
Email:  [log in to unmask]

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/