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2.8 Generativity and Language

The second key feature of language is generativity (also called productivity). Generativity means that we can create and understand an infinite number of meaningful sentences and utterances. Every language has a fixed or finite number of basic sounds, letters, and words. But a fluent person can generate an infinite number of completely novel sentences with those sounds, letters, and words.

SymbolismGenerativity
Words “refer” to other things

What a word “refers” to is often its meaning
We can create and understand an infinite number of meaningful sentences
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