ABSTRACT
It is very difficult to describe the meanings of lexemes or sentencesexplicitly. In fact, semanticists do not even agree as to what kind of entities meanings are. (The ‘mentalist’ point of view presented here, which regards meanings as concepts, is the prevalent view but not uncontroversial.) It is, however, relatively easy to establish meaning relations between sentences or expressions. One influential position, the structuralist position, holds that the description of meaning is exhausted by the description of meaning relations (7.1.1). We do not share this view. This notwithstanding, meaning relations are most important semantic data.
