A proposition is the meaning of a clause minus its basic illocution. Derivatively, it is also a semantic representation of such an entity. The condition that the basic illocution is not part of a proposition means that clauses that only differ by their clause type, like the two versions of , share their proposition (sometimes called propositional content).

.a.Don is a criminal descendant of a drummer.
b.Is Don a criminal descendant of a drummer?

The above definition properly defines what will be termed ‘bare proposition’. Unless indicated otherwise, proposition here means ‘bare proposition’. The entities designated or represented by a clause do not all have the same ontological status. In terms of the ontology of naïve realism, a clause may designate a thought – a third-order entity – or a state of affairs – a second-order entity. The term ‘proposition’ covers these two varieties.

Just as clauses of different clause types may share their proposition, so the concept of proposition is insensitive to the difference of whether it is designated by an independent or a subordinate clause.

.The defendant braked before the collision.
.The witness heard that the defendant braked before the collision.
.The witness heard whether the defendant braked before the collision.

Thus, the sentence of and the subordinate clauses in and share the proposition that the defendant braked before the collision.

In logic, the concept ‘proposition’ sometimes comprises the condition that it have a truth value (Quine 1960). A proposition can fulfill this condition only if the reference of all referential expressions contained is fixed (or else if it does not contain such expressions). Thus, apart from the condition that concepts such as ‘descendant’ and ‘drummer’ must be operationalized in order for anybody to be able to check whether they apply to a given individual, the referent of the referential expression Don in must be given for the truth of to be ascertainable. The latter condition is fulfillable only if the clause is used in an utterance (Strawson 1950).

This narrow concept of ‘proposition’ is not adhered to here because properties of linguistic objects do not depend on particular speech situations; they are rather ingredients of linguistic systems. Likewise, the notion of truth plays no role in the ontology of propositions. Its role is taken by some other properties which interlocutors may attribute to a proposition in the universe of discourse, among them importantly: