ABSTRACT
In the present chapter we shall be concerned with a linguistic technique which is very useful in the analysis of scientific concepts. There are as a rule a number of ways in which the words used in a science can be defined in terms of a few among them. These few may have ostensive definitions, or may have nominal definitions in terms of words not belonging to the science in question, or—so long as the science is not “interpreted” in the sense considered in the last chapter—they may be left without either ostensive or nominal definition, and regarded merely as a set of terms having the properties which the science ascribes to its fundamental terms. Such a set of initial words I call a “minimum vocabulary” for the science in question, provided that (a) every other word used in the science has a nominal definition in terms of these words, and (b) no one of these initial words has a nominal definition in terms of the other initial words.
