Saturday, May 05, 2007

4.025 The translation of one language into another does not proceed by one’s translating each sentence of one into a sentence of the other, but only by translating the constituent parts of sentences.


(And the dictionary translates not only substantives but also verbs, adjectives, and conjunctions, etc.; and it treats them all the same way.)


Yes, but translation software does not work very well. Translation is not as simple or mechanical as 4.025 suggests. Wittgenstein, who helped with the translation of the Tractatus, surely knew this. Cf. Philosophical Investigations §§1-23.

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