The inconsistency of natural language
It is important to note that Tarski was concerned with the study of semantics (meaning in general) rather than specifically linguistic semantics. While Tarski thought that the truth-conditions for formal languages like logic could be precisely specified, he argued that the meaning of natural languages could not be precisely specified in terms of truth conditions. Tarski expresses this view in the following way:
A particularly clear illustration of the way in which natural language resists precise definition in terms of truth conditions emerged from J. L. Austin’s work on speech acts. This theory was developed in Austin’s 1955 lectures, which were published posthumously in 1962. Austin observed that only certain types of sentence relate to ‘states of affairs in the world’. This sentence type, which Austin called constative, is illustrated in examples (1) to (4).
Only sentences of the kind in (1) to (4) can be said to have truth conditions because they can be verified against the corresponding state of affairs that they describe. In contrast, it makes little sense to think of the sentences in (5) to (11) as ‘describing’ states of affairs because these sentences are performing verbal acts rather than describing situations. Observe that performatives license the adverb hereby, and are restricted to the first-person present tense. If these sentences are changed to the third person and/or to the past tense, they become descriptions of states of affairs rather than performatives (11a), and do not license hereby (11b). Furthermore, only certain verbs function as performatives (11c).
As these examples illustrate, only a subset of sentence types can be understood in terms of their correspondence with ‘states of affairs’ or situations that they describe. Furthermore, this observation is not limited to the distinction between the types of examples illustrated here. For example, interrogative sentences like Do you want a cup of tea? and imperative sentences like Shut the door! cannot be described as ‘true’ or ‘false’ with respect to a given state of affairs in the world.
