Esmond asked:

I am a university student in Ghana.

I actually want to know in plain language the difference between an analytically true statement and a
syntactically true statement.

============

An "analytically true statement" is a statement that is true solely because of the meanings of it terms
and would be true whatever happens in the world. For example: The statement, all tadpoles are frogs
is analytically true. That is because the term "tadpole" is English means "little frog." So what is really
being said is that all little frogs are frogs, and that must, of course, be true. Again, all brothers are
male persons, is analytically true, since (as you know) the term "brother" means "male sibling," and,
therefore, the statement that all brothers are male persons means that all male siblings are male
persons, and that, again must be true solely because of the meanings of the terms involved.

You also ask the difference between analytic truths and what you call "syntactic truths." I have never
heard the term "syntactic truth" but I think that would mean a statement true just because of its syntax
or grammar. I don't believe that if we take that idea literally, that there are any "syntactic truths."

I think, however, that you do not mean "syntactic truth," but rather "synthetic truth" a concept that is
contrasted with "analytic truth" which I discussed above.

Now, a synthetic truth is one whose truth (or falsity) is notdependent solely on the meanings of its
terms. For instance, consider the statement that all dogs are meat-eaters. It is not a part of the
meaning of the word "dog" that it is a meat-eater, so that is not an analytically true statements. A
person who knew the meaning of the word "dog" but who knew nothing about dogs (the animal) could
not know that it was true that all dogs eat meat. In order to know that, the person would have to have
knowledge about dogs and their eating habits. In other words, to know whether or not dogs eat meat
or not, it is not enough to discover the meaning of the word "dog." This is very different from the
statement, "all dogs are animals." To know that, you have only to know what the word "dog" means. If
you do not know all dogs are animals, then you cannot know the meaning of the word "dog." But you
may not know that all dogs eat meat, and yet know the meaning of the word "dog."

Ken Stern

I think the questioner might mean 'syntactic', not 'synthetic'. A syntactic truth is a truth which is
guaranteed by the syntaxof the language alone. In other words, a syntactic truth is a logical truth. An
example of a syntactic truth is, 'If it is windy and it is raining, then it is raining'.

In order to know whether a statement which is not syntactically true is analytically true, you need to
know certain factsabout the language in question, namely what certain terms in the language mean.
This is not a problem for an artificial language, where we simply stipulate that term A is to be
interchangeable in all contexts with term B. The problem, as Quine argued in his famous paper, 'Two
Dogmas of Empiricism' (1953, reprinted in From a Logical Point of View) is that when it comes to the
language we actually use, the question whether or not two terms have the same meaning becomes
quasi-empirical. Our intuitions about equivalences of meaning are not always correct. This led Quine
famously to attack the idea of an 'analytic' truth.

Geoffrey Klempner