ABSTRACT
How do you begin to think about this? The question seems so general as to be almost empty of content. How one goes about answering such a question depends very much on one’s reasons for asking it in the first place. It would not be far from the truth to say that one could really understand the question only in the light of particular answers to it. Different thinkers about language have answered it in their different ways and, in doing so, have given the question a different significance.
