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Twenty-Four

DEPTH GRAMMAR

664. In the use of words one might distinguish 'surface
grammar' from 'depth grammar'. What immediately im-
presses itself upon us about the use of a word is the way it
is used in the construction of a sentence, the part of its
use -- one might say -- that can be taken in by the ear. --
And now compare the depth grammar, say of the word 'to
mean', with what the surface grammar would lead us to
suspect. No wonder we find it difficult to know our way
about.

HERE Wittgenstein introduces a new notion, 'depth
grammar', with only the sketchiest of explanations of what
he means by it, and immediately asks us to put it to work,
promising that the results of doing so will be interesting.
While he has elsewhere used the word 'grammar' often
enough, he appears to attach an unconventional sense to it,
which he nowhere explains; and we do not even know, al-
though perhaps we could figure it out, whether by grammar
simpliciter he means surface grammar, depth grammar, the
whole of which surface and depth grammar are parts, or
something else. We are asked to compare the depth grammar
of 'to mean' with what its surface grammar would lead us to
suspect, without being given any examples of surface gram-
mar leading us to suspect anything, or any examples of the
kind of thing this is to be compared with. No wonder indeed
we find it difficult to know our way about.Let us anyway review the clues we are given, and some
assumptions it is fair to make:
1. If Wittgenstein is not completely perverse in his use of
the word 'grammar', there ought to be something in common
between what we all know as grammar, the grammar we learn

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Publication Information: Book Title: Understanding Wittgenstein: Studies of Philosophical Investigations. Contributors: J. F. M. Hunter - author. Publisher: Edinburgh University Press. Place of Publication: Edinburgh. Publication Year: 1985. Page Number: 204.
    
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