An ordered-triple theory of language

It has long been recognized by the members of the Prague School that a natural language should be examined not as a static, but as a dynamic phenomenon, as a system of systems in operation (cf. J. Vachek 1958.94—5), in short that it should be approached from the functional point of view. Investigating language not as an isolated phenomenon of the objective reality, but as a means of interhuman communication about the objective and/or subjective world, they have always endeavoured to pay due regard both to the so-called extralingual reality which is being communicated about and to the language user performing the communication. Following this tradition, we should like to present a theoretical framework of a natural language, taking into account all the basic components of any semiotic system and thereby preserving the link between the language user and the actual world on the one hand and that between language and its user on the other. The most suitable starting point for our attempt seems to be the Morrisian approach to the investigation of language as recently offered by Montague: "The study of language... was partitioned in Morris... into three branches — syntax, semantics, and pragmatics — that may be characterized roughly as follows. Syntax is concerned solely with relations between linguistic expressions; semantics with relations between expressions and the objects to which they refer; and pragmatics with relations among expressions, the objects to which they refer and the users or contexts of use of the expressions." (1968.102). In spite of the fact that this approach has long been known and recognized, most language theories have simply disregarded one or sometimes even two of the basic components of language, dealing only with syntax and semantics, or with syntax alone. In other cases, semantic and pragmatic phenomena have been investigated under the heading of semantics without any clear distinction between them.