How did Gottlob Frege contribute to the study of meaning and language?

Gottlob Frege is widely considered the father of the modern philosophy of language. His contributions revolutionized the study of meaning by shifting the focus from psychological states to logical structure.1

Key aspects of his influence include:

• Sentence-First Approach: Frege argued that the meaning of a sentence (the "thought" it expresses) is primary. The meanings of individual words are determined by their contribution to the overall structure of the sentence.1
• Sense and Referent: He introduced a crucial distinction between an expression's referent (Bedeutung), the object it points to, and its sense (Sinn), the "mode of presentation" of that object. This explained how identity statements (e.g., "Everest is Chomolungma") can be informative rather than trivial.1
• Predicate Logic: By treating predicates as mathematical functions that take arguments to produce truth-values, he provided a rigorous framework for logical analysis.1
• Generality: His development of "second-order" functions allowed for a precise logical treatment of generality, such as in the sentence "Everyone has a mother," which had previously eluded formal analysis.1

Frege’s work rejected psychological accounts of meaning, viewing thoughts as objective, abstract entities rather than mental experiences.1