Language, thought, and mental models

It is argued that neither reality nor mental images of reality are basic to linguistic representation. Rather, language & language use should be seen as autonomous phenomena. The notions of UTT (utterance) & SEN (sentence) are defined to comprise the formal aspects of lang, & SA (state of affairs) & PR (predicative response) define the content aspects. A model outlining these concepts & the means for relating them to each other is presented. Linguistic representations are described on the expression plane by phonetic representations & on the content plane by predicate logic. The notion that thinking involves the translation of visual, imaginary, & other messages into the "lang of thought" is rejected. 3 Figures, 118 References. B. Annesser Murray