Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 84 of 138
Syntax is not semantics
The distinction between syntax and semantics is so important for the rest of the argument of this book that I want to say a little more about it here. In order that there can be human linguistic communication at all, there has to be a language. A language consists of symbols, typically words, combined into sentences. These elements, symbols, words, sentences, are all syntactical. But language only works if these elements are meaningful—if they carry meaning. But what is meaning? There are many different accounts of meaning in the philosophical, linguistic, and psychological literature. I have definite opinions about which are right and which are wrong, but for the purposes of this argument those disputes do not matter. Any sane account of meaning has to recognize the distinction between the symbols, construed as purely abstract syntactical entities, and the meanings attached to those symbols. The symbols have to be distinguished from their meanings. For example, if I write down a sentence in German, “Es regnet,” you will see words on the page and thus see the syntactical objects, but if you do not know German, you will be aware only of the syntax, not of the semantics. You will be in the situation that I am in in the Chinese Room, where I am aware of the syntax of the computational system, but I do not know what any of it means.