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.)

4.53 The general propositional form is a variable.

5. A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions.

(An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

5.01 Elementary propositions are the truth-arguments of propositions.

5.02 The arguments of functions are readily confused with the affixes of
names. For both arguments and affixes enable me to recognize the meaning
of the signs containing them. For example, when Russell writes '+c',
the 'c' is an affix which indicates that the sign as a whole is the
addition-sign for cardinal numbers. But the use of this sign is the
result of arbitrary convention and it would be quite possible to choose
a simple sign instead of '+c'; in 'Pp' however, 'p' is not an affix but
an argument: the sense of 'Pp' cannot be understood unless the sense of
'p' has been understood already. (In the name Julius Caesar 'Julius'
is an affix. An affix is always part of a description of the object to
whose name we attach it: e.g. the Caesar of the Julian gens.) If I
am not mistaken, Frege's theory about the meaning of propositions and
functions is based on the confusion between an argument and an affix.
Frege regarded the propositions of logic as names, and their arguments
as the affixes of those names.

5.1 Truth-functions can be arranged in series. That is the foundation of
the theory of probability.

5.101 The truth-functions of a given number of elementary propositions
can always be set out in a schema of the following kind: (TTTT) (p, q)
Tautology (If p then p, and if q then q.) (p z p. q z q) (FTTT) (p, q)
In words: Not both p and q. (P(p. q)) (TFTT) (p, q) ": If q then p. (q
z p) (TTFT) (p, q) ": If p then q. (p z q) (TTTF) (p, q) ": p or q. (p C
q) (FFTT) (p, q) ": Not g. (Pq) (FTFT) (p, q) ": Not p. (Pp) (FTTF) (p,
q) " : p o