The use of the factive verb explain assumes the truth of the following proposition, in a way that a non-factive such as claim would not. Embedding propositions in this way can make them more difficult to identify, and more difficult to challenge. It would therefore be possible to study discussions between political commentators on radio and politicians or other public figures. One could study the propositions to which one or both speakers are committed at a given point in the discourse, whether such propositions have been asserted or are taken for granted, and which propositions are, con- versely, under explicit questioning in some way. A detailed study of the syntax and semantics of factive verbs and related linguistic devices is a necessary prerequisite for such a study.
- Semantics has not characteristically been applied to practical issues, although it is clear that there are many problems in, for example, the interpretation of legal documents, which are essentially semantic. Linguistics is, however, beginning to provide the tools which would allow such applications in a principled way, and which would therefore answer this complaint from Enoch Powell (1980):