How did Bertrand Russell’s work in logic affect the study of natural language?

Bertrand Russell’s work in logic profoundly influenced the study of natural language by initiating the "linguistic turn" in analytic philosophy, which shifted the focus from metaphysical speculation to the analysis of the language used to express thought.1

His most significant contribution is the theory of descriptions, introduced in his 1905 paper "On Denoting." Russell argued that the grammatical structure of ordinary language often conceals its true "logical form". By treating noun phrases like "the present king of France" as quantificational rather than as singular terms, he demonstrated that sentences containing non-referring descriptions could be meaningful and assigned a truth value without requiring the existence of a corresponding entity. This method allowed philosophers to identify and resolve "logical fictions" that had previously caused confusion.21

Furthermore, Russell’s approach established a program of logical analysis that sought to categorize linguistic forms and identify their determinate logical implications. This vision influenced generations of philosophers to view language as a tool for uncovering the nature of reality, fundamentally shaping the development of modern formal logic and the philosophy of language.12