CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF CAMEROON (CATUC) - BAMENDA

CITY OF WISDOM

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCAIL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

COURSE TITLE: PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

COURSE CODE: PHI 3202

SYNTAX IN ALEXANDER MILLER’S PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

PRESENTED BY
AMBE ABRAHAM CHENWIE
257819

LECTURER
MR. KIZITOR LAIVEN

APRIL 2022

1
 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1

SYNTAX...........................................................................................................................1

Formal Property of Syntax...............................................................................................2

Natural and Artificial Language.....................................................................................3

Syntactic Rules.................................................................................................................3

CONCLUSION................................................................................................................4

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY...........................................................................................5
INTRODUCTION

Noam Chomsky in his work Syntactic Structures, admonishes linguists that they must

focus on the “fundamental underlying properties of successful grammars.”1 This points to the

fact that, language is analysed from different facets like meaning, reference, subject,

predicate, syntax, semantics and so on. More so, Chomsky’s view highlights the fact that

language, on the edifice of grammar, has both syntax and semantics. Specifically, the words

and phrases we use have both grammatical meaning according to their function in correctly

formed sentences (syntax) and intrinsic meaning (semantics). 2 However, we shall centre only

on the syntax aspect of language with reference to Alexander Miller’s Philosophy of

Language. In this light, we shall use the analytic method.

SYNTAX

The word Syntax comes from the Greek word Syntaxis, meaning “to put in order or

together”. It stems from the roots: Syn which means “to put in order” and tassein meaning

“to arrange”. Hence, syntax has to do with putting in order or together. According to

Chomsky, “Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are

constructed in particular languages.”3 This means that the syntax of a particular language is

its grammar. They are rules for what kind of words, parts of language or vocabulary you can

put in what order in English for instance, you cannot put four nouns together and call it a

sentence. E.g., horse, bag, tomato, teeth. In mathematics for instance; “=7+8>” is incorrect

syntax.

1
N. CHOMSKY, Syntactic Structures, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2002, 11.
2
C. SHERIDAN, “Frege and Wittgenstein: The Limits of the Analytic Style”, in Elements, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2010,
11, https://doi.org/10.6017/eurj.v6i1.9022, Consulted on 14th April, 2022.
3
N. CHOMSKY, Syntactic Structures, 11.

1
 In another way, Stephen Wechsler defines Syntax as “the grammatical system for

combining words into utterances.”4 From this, we note that syntax deal with how words

appear together to construct sentences and whether syntactical structures common among all

languages exist. These two aspects of syntax are exemplified by our author, Alexander

Miller, who maintains that “a syntax or grammar for a language consists, roughly, of two

things: a specification of the vocabulary of the language, and a set of rules which determine

which sequences of expressions constructed from that vocabulary are grammatical and which

are ungrammatical (or alternatively, which sequences are syntactically well-formed and

which are syntactically ill-formed).”5 For instance, “John is tall”, is a well-formed syntax

meanwhile “pot put fire on”, is an ill-formed syntax. This brings us to consider what makes a

syntax well-formed.

Formal Property of Syntax

Miller is of the opinion that “when we are working at the level of syntax, the only

properties of expressions … are formal properties.”6 For Rudolf Carnap, a syntax is called

formal “when no reference is made in it either to the meaning of the symbols (for example,

the words) or to the sense of the expressions (e.g., the sentences), but simply and solely to the

kinds and order of the symbols from which the expressions are constructed.” 7 In other words,

the syntax of a certain language is to be understood as the formal property of that language in

which case we consider a linguistic expression without any reference to sense or meaning.

That is, a formal investigation of a certain sentence does not concern the sense of that

sentence or the meaning of the single words, but only the kinds of words and the order in

which they follow one another. For example, Abraham is a Religious. Looking at this

4
S. WECHSLER, Word Meaning and Syntax: Approaches to the Interface, Oxford University Press, United
Kingdom 2015, 1.
5
A. MILLER, Philosophy of Language, Second Edition, Routledge-Tylor and Francis Group, UK 2007, 7.
6
Ibid., 7.
7
R. CARNAP, Logical Syntax of Language, Routledge-Tylor and Francis Group, UK 1937, 1.

2
example, if I maintain that this expression consists of four words and it’s a sentence and

further, that the first word is a subject (object), the second a verb, the third an article and the

fourth, an adjective, all these assertions are formal and hence a well-formed syntax. But if I

affirm that the last word designates someone who has consecrated himself to God through

vows, then my assertion is not formal because it has to do with the meaning of the word.

However, we must take into cognizance the fact that syntax is greatly influenced by the

meanings of words.

Natural and Artificial Language

For Chomsky, syntax is concerned with both natural languages and artificial

languages.8 A natural language has to do with the language of origin of a person and which is

acquired over time. For example: Nkwen, Lamso, English. While an artificial or formal

language is a language devised or developed by a small group of people for a particular

purpose. For instance: language used in programming, mathematics and logical reasoning.

Syntax in a natural language focuses on the rules for how the kind of words, parts of

language, or vocabulary is organized, like; John plays football. On the other hand, syntax in

formal languages is used to create and analyse well-formed sentences. Propositional logic, for

instance, makes use of letters in the English alphabet (Sentential constants: P, Q, R, …) that

express sentences and sentential connectives (symbols: -, v, &, →, ↔) that express

connectives to create sentences.9 For example; John is tall and Peter is short. This sentence

can be expressed by propositional logic this way: P & Q. Accordingly, Miller outlines some

rules for propositional logic.

Syntactic Rules

8
Cf. N. CHOMSKY, Syntactic Structures, 12-13.
9
A. MILLER, Philosophy of Language, 7.

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 We recall that syntax has to do with rules on how words are arranged. On this plane,

Miller enumerates seven syntactical rules for propositional logic. These are:

i. Any sentential constant is grammatical.

ii. Any grammatical expression preceded by “–” is grammatical.
iii. Any grammatical expression followed by “→” followed by any grammatical
expression is grammatical.
iv. Any grammatical expression followed by “&” followed by any grammatical
expression is grammatical.
v. Any grammatical expression followed by “v” followed by any grammatical
expression is grammatical.
vi. Any grammatical expression followed by “↔” followed by any grammatical
expression is grammatical.
vii. Any sequence of expressions which does not count as grammatical in virtue of (i)
– (vi) is not grammatical.10

From the foregoing rules, using the sentential constants P, Q, and R, and the sentential

connectives &, and v, we can identify the basis of rule (v), for instance, that “(P & Q) v R” is

grammatical or well-formed with respect to formal properties.

CONCLUSION

This paper aimed at explaining syntax as presented by Alexander Miller in his work,

Philosophy of Language. We note here that Miller borrowed much from the works of Gottlob

Frege, a German Philosopher and Logician. We explained that the syntax of a particular

language is its grammar and it has to do with putting words, or phrases, in order or together

so as to form a sentence. We further saw that syntax makes Sentential constants: (P, Q, R, …)

that express sentences and sentential connectives (symbols: -, v, &, →, ↔) that express

connectives to create sentences. Finally, we enumerated seven syntactical rules for

propositional logic as proposed by Miller.

From this we maintain that each language has its own syntax because the word order

in Latin for instance, will not be the same in English. More so, syntax permits humans to use

language properly, without which, speech becomes semantically barren.

10
A. MILLER, Philosophy of Language, 8.

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 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

CARNAP Rudolf, Logical Syntax of Language, Routledge-Tylor and

Francis Group, UK 1937.

CHOMSKY Noam, Syntactic Structures, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2002.

MILLER Alexander, Philosophy of Language, Second Edition, Routledge-

Tylor and Francis Group, UK 2007.

SHERIDAN Christopher, “Frege and Wittgenstein: The Limits of the Analytic

Style”, in Elements, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2010, 11,
https://doi.org/10.6017/eurj.v6i1.9022, Consulted on
14th April, 2022.

WECHSLER Stephen, Word Meaning and Syntax: Approaches to the

Interface, Oxford University Press, United Kingdom
2015.