The Linguistic Linkage Compulsion: A Phenomenological Account

ABSTRACT The paper attempts to provide an answer to the question of the semantic compulsion exerted by language on its speakers. It does so via an analysis of Husserl’s extended meaning chain and his comments in his Nachlass on language as Zumutung (imposition). The central thrust of the paper is the question of how the linguistic linkage compulsion (LLC) affects the components of Husserl’s language meaning paradigm, consisting of Bedeutungsintention (meaning intention), the minimal sense of Bedeutung, and Sinn as saturating meaning fulfilment. As to its methodological commitment, the paper employs a Husserlian description of the intentional acts of active and passive syntheses which we cannot but perform when we engage in natural language as communication. The paper concludes with a review of its findings from the perspective of Husserl’s key concept of intentionality.