Essays in logical semantics
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Essays in logical semantics
zbMATH Open document ID: 0619.03021
published in: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy
publication date: 1986-01-01T00:00:00Z
review text: This is a very comprehensive, sometimes however sketchy book concerning a great many of problems from the area of logical (semantic) analysis of natural language. The author's approach can be (not exhaustively) characterized as a search for such ''constraints on denotation'' (this is also the name of Part I) which - when making up a theory - can serve as criteria for distinguishing semantic universals of logical character from empirical regularities. This might be perhaps considered the most general common feature of the 10 Chapters of the book; Part I (Chapters 1-6) generalizes regularities found in the case of generalized quantifiers to other categories and continues with an analysis of conditionals, tense and modality; further, an idea of ''natural logic'' (''based directly on linguistic form'') is briefly presented. Part II (''Dynamics of Interpretation'') deals with categorial grammars and semantic automata (Chapters 7, 8). The most general Part III (''Methodology of Semantics'') deals with foundational problems of logical semantics and its relations to empirical science (Chapters 9, 10). Even when the problems dealt with in this work are rather general, the book contains many special theorems. The assortment of the proof methods used is very wide; a special role is played by the ''tree of numbers'', the exposition of which is rather sketchy. Some very essential contributions to solving problems of semantics could have been exploited if the author did not neglect Tichý's transparent intensional logic.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03B65
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03-02
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03C80
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03C60
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03C07
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03A05
zbMATH DE Number: 4004161
zbMATH Keywords: logicality
zbMATH Keywords: generalized quantifiers
zbMATH Keywords: categorial grammars
zbMATH Keywords: semantic automata
zbMATH Keywords: logical semantics
zbMATH Keywords: empirical science
zbMATH Keywords: tree of numbers
author: Johan van Benthem
reviewed by: Pavel Materna
MaRDI profile type: Publication
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4004161