Meaning is an inalienable property of language and it is understood in different ways. Some of the well-known ways by which it is understood are: as the property of sentences, as the use, as the representation in the sense of a picture of a sentence, and also as the relation to truth condition. Traditionally, meaning atomism or the atomistic perspective on meaning is a very important conception of meaning which identifies meaning with reference. In this presentation we shall discuss the issues of meaning as advocated by Frege. His atomistic theory of meaning is constructed through his truth conditional approach to meaning. Thus the idea of meaning defined in terms of truth conditions has become the predominant tradition in semantics due to Frege.

Meaning atomism states that every representation either in a linguistic or in a mental system is completely definable by itself. To say that meaning is completely definable is to lay emphasis on the individual sentences because it is the individual sentence that matters in our concern for meaning. The truth conditional approach to meaning has been developed from the same semantic presupposition, i.e. the individual sentence as the basic unit of language. To know the meaning of a sentence is to know the conditions under which the sentence is true. Thus understanding of meaning consists in understanding the meaning of individual sentences. The central feature of this conception of meaning (meaning atomism) is that it assumes an inseparable connection between meaning and truth. Thus, meaning of a sentence is so conceived that it is decided by its truth condition. The truth conditional approach to meaning in this sense expresses meaning atomism.

In Frege the idea of atomistic theory of meaning and its analysis is primarily developed in his paper “On Sense and Reference”. He states that in order to have a meaningful sentence it should fulfill the criterion of ‘sense’. Though the term ‘meaning’ is not same as the term ‘sense’ as understood by Frege, yet sense may be understood broadly under the larger domain of meaning.