Natural Language
The logical conjunction and in logic is related to, but not the same as, the grammatical conjunction and in natural languages.
English "and" has properties not captured by logical conjunction. For example, "and" sometimes implies order. For example, "They got married and had a child" in common discourse means that the marriage came before the child. The word "and" can also imply a partition of a thing into parts, as "The American flag is red, white, and blue." Here it is not meant that the flag is at once red, white, and blue, but rather that it has a part of each color.
Read more about this topic: Logical Conjunction
Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or language:
“When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“Any language is necessarily a finite system applied with different degrees of creativity to an infinite variety of situations, and most of the words and phrases we use are “prefabricated” in the sense that we don’t coin new ones every time we speak.”
—David Lodge (b. 1935)