4.4661 Admittedly the signs are still combined with one another even in
tautologies and contradictions--i.e. they stand in certain relations to one
another: but these relations have no meaning, they are not essential to the
symbol .


4.5 It now seems possible to give the most general propositional form: that
is, to give a description of the propositions of any sign-language
whatsoever in such a way that every possible sense can be expressed by a
symbol satisfying the description, and every symbol satisfying the
description can express a sense, provided that the meanings of the names
are suitably chosen. It is clear that only what is essential to the most
general propositional form may be included in its description--for
otherwise it would not be the most general form. The existence of a general
propositional form is proved by the fact that there cannot be a proposition
whose form could not have been foreseen (i.e. constructed). The general
form of a proposition is: This is how things stand.


4.51 Suppose that I am given all elementary propositions: then I can simply
ask what propositions I can construct out of them. And there I have all
propositions, and that fixes their limits.


4.52 Propositions comprise all that follows from the totality of all
elementary propositions (and, of course, from its being the totality of
them all ). (Thus, in a certain sense, it could be said that all
propositions were generalizations of elementary propositions.)