postulate (n.)

An application in LINGUISTICS of the general use of this term in the branch of logic known as axiomatics. It refers to a set of initial PROPOSITIONS which a theory assumes to be true; these initial statements, and subsequent deductions made from them, are collectively known as the postulational method. In linguistics, several ‘sets of postulates’ have been proposed, in attempts to systematize ideas about LANGUAGE, the best known being those propounded by the American linguists Leonard Bloomfield (in 1926) and Bernard Bloch (in 1948).