Quantifier Phrases, Meaningfulness “in Isolation,” and Ellipsis
Robert J. Stainton · 2004
Abstract Semanticists and philosophers of language have traditionally divided expressions into two classes: those that do, and those that do not, have meaning “in isolation.” Among expressions which are commonly said to lack meaning in isolation are particles in natural language (e.g., ‘up’ in ‘shoot up’, ‘on’ in ‘catch on’, etc.) and the logical vocabulary of both natural and artificial languages (e.g., the sentential connectives ‘and’, ‘if’, etc.).