How did Gottlob Frege’s work change the role of language in modern philosophy?

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Austrian postage stamp featuring a portrait of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, with German text above and below, and a denomination of 5 schillings. — Philosophy of language An Austrian stamp depicting Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Gottlob Frege is widely considered the father of modern philosophy of language because he shifted the focus of meaning away from the psychological states of speakers and toward logical structure.1

Before Frege, philosophers like John Locke viewed words as vehicles for private, mental ideas. Frege rejected this, arguing that "thoughts" are not mental entities but are determined by the logical inferences a sentence permits. His revolution established several key principles:1

Priority of the Sentence: He argued that the meaning of a sentence is primary; individual words derive their meaning only through their contribution to the whole sentence.1
Sense and Referent: He distinguished between an expression's referent (Bedeutung)—the object it points to—and its sense (Sinn), or "mode of presentation." This distinction explains how statements like Everest is Chomolungma can be informative while Everest is Everest is trivial.1
Logical Functions: Frege treated predicates as mathematical functions, where the truth-value of a sentence is determined by the output of these functions.1

By formalizing mathematical logic, Frege transformed how philosophers analyze language, moving it from a study of the mind to a rigorous study of syntax and logic.1