Meaning

Meaning is the sine qua non of language. It may be surprising, then, that scientists currently lack a complete theory of meaning,  and that semantics remains a kind of "Wild West" of linguistic theory. Even more than syntax, semantics is full of rival approaches, and continued disagreement prevails, even about the basic question of what meaning is, or how it is to be defined. That such questions have remained in the domain of philosophy since the time of Aristotle is a testament to their difficulty: meaning can still be seen as the most important unsolved problem in the cognitive sciences. 

W. Tecumseh Fitch. THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE. (Cambridge University Press, 2010). p. 119.

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