ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Augustinian picture' of language, denotational theory of meaning, stage-setting; ambiguity of exemplars, Wittgenstein's interlocutor, block/slab game, toolbox analogy of language, form and function of words, linguistic essences and family resemblance. It also includes language-games, performatives, meaning-as-use, request formats, habituation studies and the concept of imitation. The chapter reviews a number of key ideas from the Tractatus that stand in stark contrast to the view expressed in the selection from the opening remarks of the Investigations. Philosophers and linguists no longer believe that every word has an 'essential' meaning; a common meaning that lies behind all the various ways each word is used. To Wittgenstein, the 'particular picture of the essence of human language' presented by Augustine is based on the related ideas that 'the individual words in language name objects' and that 'sentences are combinations of names'.
