Explanation
A meaning postulate is a formally stated condition that records a necessary semantic relationship between expressions. It may specify, for example, that anything satisfying one predicate must also satisfy a more general predicate, or that two properties are incompatible. Unlike contingent world knowledge, the postulate is intended to follow from conventional linguistic meaning. It introduces lexical knowledge into a logical model without requiring every expression to be exhaustively decomposed into primitive features. The conceptual movement isolates a stable inference, formalises it, and then asks whether it holds across all linguistically relevant contexts or merely reflects a typical, cultural, or factual expectation.
Movement of thought
1. A recurring inferential relationship between linguistic expressions is stated explicitly. 2. The analysis tests whether the inference comes from conventional meaning or world knowledge. 3. The relation is represented as implication, exclusion, or another formal condition. 4. Counterexamples and possible situations test whether the claimed connection is genuinely necessary. 5. Only robust relationships are retained as components of the semantic model.
Scientific use case
Formal semantics, lexical knowledge representation, and automated inference use meaning postulates to model hyponymy, incompatibility, and selection restrictions. Their scope must be constrained by speaker judgements and contextual variation.
Example
A model states that anything truthfully described as a bachelor is also an unmarried adult man. The rule explains a lexical inference without claiming to provide an exhaustive definition.
Counterexample
The expectation that birds normally fly is not automatically a meaning postulate, because flightless birds create no linguistic contradiction. A postulate must capture a necessary semantic relationship rather than a strong everyday expectation.
Distinction
A meaning postulate belongs to the semantic specification of a formal system; not every legal or administrative definition is therefore a meaning postulate. Distinguish a meaning postulate from a definition, encyclopaedic knowledge, a default rule, and an empirical generalisation. It fixes selected necessary relations without analysing every component of an expression's meaning.
Effect on thought and perception
Meaning postulates make implicit lexical inferences computationally and argumentatively visible. They create order but may mistakenly solidify contingent norms as necessary linguistic meaning.
Resonance
An invisible commitment runs between two expressions: once one is asserted, the other answers as a necessary consequence. The postulate traces this line of semantic tension.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Postulate of meaning“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-133-019. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-133-019The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
Book I, chapter VIII of Mill's System of Logic treats defining a name as specifying its connoted attributes. It separates analysis of a name from claims about the things named. This supplies a logical predecessor for studying semantic commitments, not a direct witness to the modern formal device called a meaning postulate.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Test whether the inference follows from an adopted meaning or from observation. A definition does not prove a new fact.
References for the historical section
- John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, eighth edition, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882; Project Gutenberg ebook 27942 · System of Logic I.viii: definition, connotation and the commitments of a name
Selected witness, not a complete genealogy or first English attestation. Contemporary Atlas comparisons are editorial interpretations. Only the named passage of the identified transcription was inspected; philosophical positions remain attributed, not treated as settled empirical results.