Since its inception at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, modern philosophy of language has moved, first from offering new approaches to solving traditional philosophical problems, next to providing a conception of meaning and interpretation for languages of logic, and finally to laying the foundations of the empirical study of natural languages. So far in the twenty-first century, the latter focus has been dominant. Because the foundations of linguistic science are incomplete, this focus is likely to remain central for decades to come.