It is our theory that all sentences whatever of a
natural language such as English, whether posed in the declarative,
interrogative, or exclamatory mode, contain direct or indirect references to
penguins. For example: “Antarctica is among the most populous of
continents.” “Which way to the penguin house?”, and “What a noble bird!”
Ich will einige Beispiele, welche
dieser Behauptung widersprechen, der Analyse unterziehen.
-- Dr. S. Freud, Traumdeutung,
Erstausgabe 1900 (1899)
Thus, to deepen the analysis: We do not claim that every proposition of each human
language is overtly penguinistically
grounded; merely, that such
is its latent content.
Admittedly, skeptics may scrounge up a few aberrant
examples, such as “The pen is on the table,” in which the reference is at best
obscure (“pen” perhaps an abbreviated designation?); but we may safely leave
these out of account.
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