How many kinds of sentence are there,
though || But how many kinds of sentence are
there?
Assertion, question and command
perhaps || Is it assertions, questions and
commands?
– There are
innumerable kinds: innumerable
different
kinds of
application || applications
of
everything || all that we
call “signs”, “words”,
“sentences”. And this variety is
nothing
that is fixed, given once and for
all, but new types of languag
e, new language games
– as we may say –
spring
up || come into being and others
grew || become obsolete and
are forgotten. (
We can get a rough picture
of this from || A rough picture of this we can get
if we look at the
changes || transformation
in || which happen in
mathematics.)
The expression “language
game” is
supposed to
emphasise here || used here to emphasise that the
speaking of the
language is part of an activity,
or || part of a way of
living
. || of human
beings. Bring the variety of the language
games before your mind by || To get an idea of the enormous
variety of language games consider
these
and other examples || examples, &
others:
commands || commanding || giving
commands, and acting according to commands;
describing an object according to its
appearance, or according to || giving a description of an object by
describing what it looks like, or by giving its
measurements;
producing an object according to a description
(drawing);
reporting
a course of
events || an event;
setting
up || making a hypothesis and testing it;
presentation of || presenting
the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams;
performing in a theatre || acting a
play;
singing
a catch;
guessing
riddles || asking riddles and guessing them;
16
making a joke, or telling one;
solving
an example || a problem in
applied arithmetic;
translating from one language into
another;
entreating || requesting,
thanking, swearing, greeting, praying.
– It is interesting to
compare the variety of the instruments of
our language
and of
their applications || the ways
they are applied || their various
uses – the variety of
the parts of speech and of the kinds
of || kinds of words & of sentences – with
what logicians have said about the structure of
our
language. (
And the author of the
Tractatus
Logico-philosophicus as well || Including the
author of Tract.
Log.-phil.¤)