dictatum

Dictatum is a Latin-derived term used in English chiefly within philosophy, linguistics, and historical-critical text. Derived from the Latin participle dictatum, neuter singular, from dicere "to say," it literally means "something that has been said" and is often glossed as "the statement" or "the proposition asserted." In English scholarship, dictatum is sometimes used to refer to the propositional content of an utterance, i.e., the content that a speaker asserts, as distinct from the words themselves or the act of utterance. The term is not common in everyday usage and is considered archaic or specialized.

In philosophical and semantic discussions, dictatum may function as a technical noun for the content of a speech act or for the that-clause expressed by a sentence, closely related to terms such as proposition, assertive content, or propositional content. Its exact scope varies by author; some treat dictatum as synonymous with "proposition expressed" while others reserve it for the "content" component of a dictum in a broader theory of meaning. The use is largely confined to historical texts or Latin-labeled methodological discussions rather than to contemporary standard terminology.

In historical Latin literature, dictatum appears in legal, rhetorical, and scholastic contexts to mean the thing said or the assertion under discussion. Modern usage tends to prefer "proposition" or "statement" for clarity, and "dictatum" appears chiefly in discussions about classical logical-literary devices or in translations of Latin sources. See also: dictum, proposition, statement, content, propositional content.