Polish logic, language and philosophy of language (Q2702280)

The paper presents some reflections on a tight interdependence between logic and natural language demonstrated by the influence of thinking in Polish to Polish logicians. Thus problems being solved concern not only logic but rather philosophy of language from a linguistic point of view. Ajdukiewicz's categorial grammar is presented and it is opposed to richer contemporary versions of extended categorial grammars better adjusted to analysing natural language. The problem of noun phrases is discussed, which is especially hard in languages like Polish without any definite or indefinite articles. Finally, the author speculates as to why the structure of Polish noun phrases prevented Ajdukiwicz and logicians of that period from the proper categorisation of quantifiers and quantified noun phrases and consequently from the necessary introduction of additional rules of category composition.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0946.00016].