Wiltschko, Martina2022-12-022022-12-022022Wiltschko M. Language is for thought and communication. Glossa. 2022;7(1):19 p. DOI: 10.16995/glossa.57862397-1835http://hdl.handle.net/10230/55066There is an ancient debate about whether language is an instrument for thought or for communication. I argue that the distinction is misleading, and that language is an integral part of both, human-specific thought, and communication. The argument is based on the growing consensus that grammatical knowledge – a hallmark of human language – encompasses not only the propositional content of an utterance but also its communicative content. If communicative content is regulated by grammatical knowledge, then it follows that communication is as much a function of language as thought is.application/pdfeng© 2022 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttps://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5786Function of languageInteractional languageLanguage and thoughtinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess