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Document Details :

Title: Gottlob Frege Revisited
Author(s): DROSTE, F.G.
Journal: Leuvense Bijdragen - Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology
Volume: 95    Date: 2006   
Pages: 15-33
DOI: 10.2143/LB.95.0.2033180

Abstract :
More than a century ago G. Frege caused a modest revolution in linguistic description, more particularly in semantics, by distinguishing meaning and reference, the first a language-internal function, the second a relation to phenomena in the outside world. His scientific heirs, Kripke, Quine, Montague and others elaborated the consequences of his approach in model-theoretic semantics and, especially, in so-called Possible World semantics, in which 'truth in a model' became a central parameter. Although this theory has been obliged to leave the stage for more psychological approaches such as cognitive and psycho-linguistcs, some of its principles seem inspiring enough to be revisited. We will do that in a cognate framework, in what we call a cModel theory (for c = communicative). The notions reference and referent will be critically examined.

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