Abstract

This book differs from a number of other volumes recently published on language in that its primary aim is not a description of sui generis linguistic structures, but an attempt to locate language in a larger context of human behavior. Emphasis should be placed on the second word in the title, "behavior," for that is its main object of analysis. When language itself is discussed it is presented as one form of systematic communicative behavior, and the thesis is defended that reference in linguistic theory to minds and mental events needs to be analyzed in terms of behavioral criteria. Hence, this work represents an approach to the study of language which is decidedly anti-Chomskyan, and the author is also careful to distinguish his position from recent work by Quine, Davidson, and Ziff. The author adopts an explicit meaning-nominalistic program, which makes individual instances of meaning the origin of successful linguistic communication, rather than taking a theoretical model of linguistic structure as the basis for understanding individual instances of language use.