Sentences and Systems

Abstract

In this paper, it is argued on two different grounds that sentences in natural languages can be seen as systems. First, beyond their linear order, sentences exhibit a syntactic hierarchical structure. Therefore, they are structured entities. Second, although the principle of compositionality—which states that the meaning of a sentence is a function of the meanings of the parts of that sentence—is valid in general for natural languages, this principle has been shown to have many exceptions, where interpretation does not proceed bottom-up but top-down, from the meaning of the whole to the meaning of the parts. If the whole depends on its parts and the parts on the whole, then the sentence is a system that cannot be dissected into separate parts without losing something essential.