Editing Quine's paradox (section)

== Motivation ==
The [[liar paradox]] ("This sentence is false", or "The next sentence is true. The previous sentence is false") demonstrates essential difficulties in assigning a truth value even to simple sentences. Many philosophers attempting to explain the liar paradox – for examples see that article – concluded that the problem was with the use of [[demonstrative]] word "this" or its replacements.  Once we properly analyze this sort of [[self-reference]], according to those philosophers, the paradox no longer arises.

Quine's construction demonstrates that paradox of this kind arises independently of such direct self-reference, for, no [[lexeme]] of the sentence refers to the ''sentence,'' though Quine's sentence does contain a lexeme which refers to one of its ''parts''. Namely, "its" near the end of the sentence is a [[possessive pronoun]] whose antecedent is the very predicate in which it occurs. Thus, although Quine's sentence ''per se'' is not self-referring, it does contain a self-referring predicate.<ref name="Quine1987"/>