Abstract
Scientific and philosophical investigations of language are usually confined to one aspect or level of language; but such restrictions carry with them the implication that the formal subject of investigation is on its level proper to the entire language. Language is here taken as a structure or system of which only a part is examined; but this part has reference to the whole structure or system. Due to this reference, individual investigations can be understood as tributaries of a cooperative effort which has for its goal the explication of the total structure or system. The ideal result of this effort would constitute a definition of the respective language in delimiting all its formal regularities and referential possibilities.1 It would represent an ideal grammar that would tell us univocally and comprehensively how to speak that language. It seems then that this complete linguistic science would contain everything one could wish to know about this language.