This chapter starts with Goodman's project, saying what his aim was, spelling out the resources that he allowed himself to use in order to accomplish this aim, and explaining why the aim could not be accomplished with these resources. The author considers Goodman's response to the acknowledged failure of his initial attempt at analysis: how he proposed to redefine his Humean project. The chapter sketches David Lewis's project, which has two parts: an abstract formal semantic (...) class='Hi'>analysis of conditionals, and an attempt to explain the primitive parameters of the semantic models in a way that is austere enough to satisfy the Humean structures. The author argues that Lewis does not succeed in identifying a suitable base for a reduction of counterfactuals and other causal notions. The chapter concludes with a brief remark on the problems that remain if we reject the project of Humean reduction. (shrink)

-/- A variable binding term operator (vbto) is a non-logical constant, say v, which combines with a variable y and a formula F containing y free to form a term (vy:F) whose free variables are exact ly those of F, excluding y. -/- Kalish-Montague proposed using vbtos to formalize definite descriptions, set abstracts {x: F}, minimalization in recursive function theory, etc. However, they gave no sematics for vbtos. Hatcher gave a semantics but one that has flaws. We give a correct (...) semantic analysis of vbtos. We also give axioms for using them in deductions. And we conjecture strong completeness for the deductions with respect to the semantics. The conjecture was later proved independently by the authors and by Newton da Costa. -/- The expression (vy:F) is called a variable bound term (vbt). In case F has only y free, (vy:F) has the syntactic propreties of an individual constant; and under a suitable interpretation of the language vy:F) denotes an individual. By a semantic analysis of vbtos we mean a proposal for amending the standard notions of (1) "an interpretation o f a first -order language" and (2) " the denotation of a term under an interpretation and an assignment", such that (1') an interpretation o f a first -order language associates a set-theoretic structure with each vbto and (2') under any interpretation and assignment each vb t denotes an individual. (shrink)

Preference is a basic notion in human behaviour, underlying such varied phenomena as individual rationality in the philosophy of action and game theory, obligations in deontic logic (we should aim for the best of all possible worlds), or collective decisions in social choice theory. Also, in a more abstract sense, preference orderings are used in conditional logic or non-monotonic reasoning as a way of arranging worlds into more or less plausible ones. The field of preference logic (cf. Hansson [10]) (...) studies formal systems that can express and analyze notions of preference between various sorts of entities: worlds, actions, or propositions. The art is of course to design a language that combines perspicuity and low complexity with reasonable expressive power. In this paper, we take a particularly simple approach. As preferences are binary relations between worlds, they naturally support standard unary modalities. In particular, our key modality ♦ϕ will just say that is ϕ true in some world which is at least as good as the current one. Of course, this notion can also be indexed to separate agents. The essence of this language is already in [4], but our semantics is more general, and so are our applications and later language extensions. Our modal language can express a variety of preference notions between propositions. Moreover, as already suggested in [9], it can “deconstruct” standard conditionals, providing an embedding of conditional logic into more standard modal logics. Next, we take the language to the analysis of games, where some sort of preference logic is evidently needed ([23] has a binary modal analysis different from ours). We show how a qualitative unary preference modality suffices for defining Nash Equilibrium in strategic games, and also the Backward Induction solution for finite extensive games. Finally, from a technical perspective, our treatment adds a new twist. Each application considered in this paper suggests the need for some additional access to worlds before the preference modality can unfold its true power.. (shrink)

This open access book investigates the role played by identity of proofs in proof-theoretic semantics. It develops a conception of proof-theoretic semantics as primarily concerned with the relationship between proofs (understood as abstract entities) and derivations (the linguistic representations of proofs). It demonstrates that identity of proof is a key both to clarify some —still not wholly understood— notions at the core of proof-theoretic semantics, such as harmony; and to broaden the range of the phenomena which can be analyzed (...) using the tools of this semantic paradigm, so as to include for instance paradoxes. The volume covers topics such as the philosophical significance of different criteria of identity of proofs, and adequacy conditions for an intensional account of the notion of harmony. The author also examines the Prawitz-Tennant analysis of paradoxes by investigating on the one hand the prospects of turning it into a theory of meaning for paradoxical languages, and on the other hand two distinct kinds of phenomena, first observed by Crabbe and Ekman, showing that the Tennant-Prawitz criterion for paradoxicality overgenerates. This volume is of interest to scholars in formal and philosophical logic. (shrink)

Formal semantics is an approach to SEMANTICS1, the study of meaning, with roots in logic, the philosophy of language, and linguistics, and since the 1980’s a core area of linguistic theory. Characteristics of formal semantics to be treated in this article include the following: Formal semanticists treat meaning as mind-independent (though abstract), contrasting with the view of meanings as concepts “in the head” (see I-LANGUAGE AND E-LANGUAGE and MEANING EXTERNALISM AND INTERNALISM); formal semanticists distinguish semantics (...) from knowledge of semantics (Lewis 1975, Cresswell 1978), which has consequences for the notion of semantic COMPETENCE. A central part of the meaning of a sentence on this approach is its TRUTH CONDITIONS, and most although not all formal semantics is model-theoretic, relating linguistic expressions to model-theoretically constructed semantic values cast in terms of truth, REFERENCE, and possible worlds. This sets formal semantics apart from approaches which view semantics as relating a sentence just to a representation on another linguistic “level” (LOGICAL FORM) or a representation in an innate LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT. The formal semanticist could accept such representations as an aspect of semantics but would insist on asking what the model-theoretic semantic interpretation of the given representationlanguage is (Lewis 1970). Formal semantics is centrally concerned with COMPOSITIONALITY at the SYNTAX-SEMANTICS INTERFACE, how the meanings of larger constituents are built up from the meanings of their parts on the basis of their syntactic structure, and with the relation between compositional SENTENCE MEANING and meaning in discourse. (shrink)

The essays in this collection are the outgrowth of a workshop, held in June 1976, on formal approaches to the semantics and pragmatics of natural languages. They document in an astoundingly uniform way the develop ments in the formal analysis of natural languages since the late sixties. The avowed aim of the' workshop was in fact to assess the progress made in the application of formal methods to semantics, to confront different approaches to essentially the same (...) problems on the one hand, and, on the other, to show the way in relating semantic and pragmatic explanations of linguistic phenomena. Several of these papers can in fact be regarded as attempts to close the 'semiotic circle' by bringing together the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of certain constructions in an explanatory framework thereby making it more than obvious that these three components of an integrated linguistic theory cannot be as neatly separated as one would have liked to believe. In other words, not only can we not elaborate a syntactic description of (a fragment of) a language and then proceed to the semantics (as Montague pointed out already forcefully in 1968), we cannot hope to achieve an adequate integrated syntax and semantics without paying heed to the pragmatic aspects of the constructions involved. The behavior of polarity items, 'quantifiers' like any, conditionals or even logical particles like and and or in non-indicative sentences is clear-cut evidence for the need to let each component of the grammar inform the other. (shrink)

The principle-based approach is a methodology to classify and analyse argumentation semantics. In this paper we classify seven of the main alternatives for argumentation semantics using a set of new robustness principles. These principles complement Baroni and Giacomin’s original classification and deal with the behaviour of a semantics when the argumentation framework changes due to the addition or removal of an attack between two arguments. We distinguish so-called persistence principles and monotonicity principles, where the former deal with the question of (...) whether a labelling or extension of an argumentation framework under a given semantics persists after a change, and the latter with the question of whether new labellings or extensions are created after a change. We furthermore show in which sense labelling-based and extension-based semantics lead to subtly different principles and results. Our results can be used for choosing a semantics for a particular application, or to guide the search for new argumentation semantics, but they have been used also in the design of algorithms. (shrink)

Modern logic provides accounts of both interpretation and derivation which work together to provide abstract frameworks for modelling the sensitivity of human reasoning to task, context and content. Cognitive theories have underplayed the importance of interpretative processes. We illustrate, using Wason's [Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 20 (1968) 273] selection task, how better empirical cognitive investigations and theories can be built directly on logical accounts when this imbalance is redressed. Subjects quite reasonably experience great difficulty in assigning logical form to (...) descriptively interpreted rules in this task and materials, though not to deontically interpreted ones. The main empirical contrasts in reasoning performance are precisely between these interpretations, so better semantic theory can explain the main empirical effects. However, a more adequate notion of logical form than that typically employed in the psychology of reasoning is required, and we offer a richer alternative. Prima facie evidence that subjects do in fact experience the predicted difficulties in interpreting descriptive materials is provided by analyses of socratic tutoring dialogues. Experimental verification that these difficulties do in fact affect subjects' performance in the standard task is provided by six novel experimental conditions each designed to test different aspects of the semantic predictions. The results bear out the predictions. The semantic distinction between descriptive and deontic rules interacts with the task specifics to provide powerful generalisations about reasoning which surface in detailed explanations of many disparate observations. We conclude that semantic analyses have more direct benefits for psychological investigation than is usually credited, and conversely, that the extraordinary pragmatic circumstances of psychological experiments yield much thought provoking data for semantic analysis. © 2004 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.Subjects quite reasonably experience great difficulty in assigning logical form to descriptively interpreted rules in this task and materials, though not to deontically interpreted ones. The main empirical contracts in reasoning performance are precisely between these interpretatins, so better semantic theory can explain the main empirical effects. Howevers, a more adequate nation of logical from than that typically employed in the psychology of reasoning in required, and we offer a richer alternative.Prima facie evidence that subjects do in fact experience the predicted difficulties in interpreting descriptive materials is provided by analyses of socratic tutoring dialogues. Experimental verification that these difficulties do in fact affect subjects' performance in the standard task is provided by six novel experimental conditions each designed to test different aspects of the semantic predications.The resluts bear out the predictions. The semantic distinction between descriptive and deontic rules interacts with the task specifics to provide powerful generalisations about reasoning which surface in detailed explanations of many disparate observations. We conclude that semantic analyses have more direct benefits for psychological investigation than is usually credited, and conversely, that the extraordinary pragmatic circumstances of psychological experiments yield much thought provoking data for semantic analysis. (shrink)

Contemporary logic is confined to a few paradigmatic attitudes such as belief, knowledge, desire and intention. My purpose is to present a general modeltheoretical semantics of propositional attitudes of any cognitive or volitive mode. In my view, one can recursively define the set of all psychological modes of attitudes. As Descartes anticipated, the two primitive modes are those of belief and desire. Complex modes are obtained by adding to primitive modes special cognitive and volitive ways or special propositional content or (...) preparatory conditions. According to standard logic of attitudes , human agents are either perfectly rational or totally irrational. I will proceed to a finer analysis of propositional attitudes that accounts for our imperfect but minimal rationality. For that purpose I will use a non standard predicative logic according to which propositions with the same truth conditions can have different cognitive values and I will explicate subjective in addition to objective possibilities. Next I will enumerate valid laws of my general logic of propositional attitudes. At the end I will state principles according to which minimally rational agents dynamically revise attitudes of any mode. (shrink)

Las nociones epistémicas modales se definen como aquellos conceptos epistémicos que, como el de cognoscibilidad o el de indudabilidad, incluyen una nota modal. Segun se defiende en este trabajo, la semántica de mundos posibles y algunas de sus extensiones (especialmente las llevadas a cabo para logica temporal, logica epistemica y logica condicional) son instrumentos adecuados para deshacer el nudo de las intensionalidades superpuestas en estas nociones especialmente esquivas al análisis. Para mostrarlo, se proporcionan una serie de análisis sucesivos de la (...) nocion de cognoscibilidad que a partir de una interpretación naif van salvando una serie de presuposiciones, problemas y paradojas hasta dar con una analisis que se presume satisfactorio.“Modal epistemic notions” are those epistemic concepts which in some way or another has a modal element. These modal epistemic notions, although they could appear intuitively clear, they turn out to be particularly obscure, slippery, when one subjects them to a formal analysis. In this paper we will try to show that possible world semantics (and its extensions for epistemic, temporal and conditional logic) is an appropriate instrument for the explanation ofthese notions. Four successive analysis of the notion of “knowability” are given, ranging from a naive account to an analysis that gets to the bottom ofthe problem. (shrink)

My aim in this note is to address the question of how a context of utterance can figure within a formal, specifically truth-conditional, semantic theory. In particular, I want to explore whether a formal semantic theory could, or should, take the intentional states of a speaker to be relevant in determining the literal meaning of an uttered sentence. The answer I’m going to suggest, contrary to the position of many contemporary formal theorists, is negative. The (...) structure of this note is then as follows: first, I’ll very briefly sketch three distinct forms of semantic theory. One, ‘strong formal semantics’, will be seen to be immediately problematic, leaving us with two other options: use-based theories and what I’ll term ‘moderate formal semantics’. If we opt for the latter position, the question arises of what kinds of appeals to a context of utterance are legitimate given a formal outlook. I’ll suggest that this question arises in two distinct ways and explore the moderate formal semanticist’s position in regard to both. However, the conclusion I will reach is that what is characteristic of formal semantics is that it makes only the most minimal semantic concessions to context. (shrink)

What is it that semanticists think they are doing when using formalisation? What kind of endeavour is the formal semantics of natural language: scientific; linguistic; philosophical; logical; mathematical? If formal semantics is a scientific endeavour, then there ought to be empirical criteria for determining whether such a theory is correct, or an improvement on an alternative account. The question then arises as to the nature of the evidence that is being accounted for. It could be argued that the (...) empirical questions are little different in kind to other aspects of linguistic analysis, involving questions of performance and competence (Chomsky 1965; Saussure 1916). But there are aspects of formal accounts of meaning that appear to sit outside this scientific realm. One key issue concerns the precise nature of the formalisation that is adopted; what criteria are to be used to decide between accounts that are founded on different formal systems, with different ontological assumptions? Indeed, is it necessary to judge semantic frameworks on such grounds? In other words, are two theoretical accounts to be treated as equivalent for all relevant purposes if they account for exactly the same linguistic data? Broadly speaking, there are two related perspectives on the analysis of propositional statements, one “truth conditional” — reducing sentence meaning to the conditions under which the sentence is judged to be true (e.g. Montague 1973) — the other “proof theoretic” — reducing sentence meanings to patterns of entailments that are supported (e.g. Ranta 1994, Fox & Lappin 2005 ,Fox 2000). Variations of these perspectives might be required in the case of non-assertoric utterances. We may wonder what critieria might be used to decide between these approaches. This brings us back to the nature of the data itself. If the data is (merely) about which arguments, or truth conditions, subjects agree with, and which they disagree with, then the terms in which the theory is expressed may be irrelevant. But it may also be legitimate to be concerned with either (a) the intuitions that people have when reasoning with language, or (b) some technical or philosophical issues relating to the chosen formalism. The truth-conditional vs proof-theoretic dichotomy might broadly be characterised as model-theoretic vs axiomatic, where the model-theoretic tend to be built around a pre-existing formal theory, and the axiomatic involves formulating rules of behaviour “from scratch”. In some sense, fitting an analysis of a new problem into an existing framework could be described as providing some kind of “explanatory” power, assuming that the existing framework has some salient motivation that is independent of the specific details of the phenomena in question. In contrast, building a new theory that captures the behaviour might then be characterised as “descriptive”, as — superficially at least — it does not show how an existing theory “already” accounts for the data in some sense. Here we observe instead that the argument can be run in the other direction. that a reductive model-theoretic account merely “describes” how some aspects of a problem can be reduced to some formalisation, but may fail to capture a subject’s understanding or intuitions about meaning. It is surely appropriate for the formal theory itself to be at least sympathetic to the ontological concerns and intuitions of its subjects — if not inform them (Dummett 1991). The alternative amounts to little more than carving out otherwise arbitrary aspects of a system that mimics the required behaviour, without a coherent explanation of why some aspects of a formal theory characterise, or capture, the intended meaning, but not others (cf. Benacerraf 1965). That seems an impoverished approach, weakening any claim to “explain”. Any constraint this imposes on what is it to be an explanatory account of meaning then faces the same problem as naive notions of compositionality (Zadrozny 1994) — that is, what appears to be a meaningful restriction is, in reality, a mirage. (shrink)

Abstract -/- Kratzer’s semantics for the deontic modals ought, must, etc., is criticized and improvements are suggested. Specifically, a solution is offered for the strong/weak, must/ought contrast, based on connecting must to right and ought to good as their respective ordering norms. A formal treatment of the semantics of must is proposed. For the semantics of ought it is argued that good enough should replace best in the formula giving truth conditions. A semantics for supposed to slightly different (...) from that for ought is proposed that connects interestingly with the “normative judgement internalism” problem. An extended analysis of the workings of the ordering source in Kratzer semantics reveals several problems and related possible solutions. And finally, it is argued that ‘We must do the right things” and “We ought to pursue good things” are provably necessary in Kratzer semantics, which is, I think, a welcome result, although, since formal, does not tell what are the right and good things. (shrink)

In the dissertation we study the complexity of generalized quantifiers in natural language. Our perspective is interdisciplinary: we combine philosophical insights with theoretical computer science, experimental cognitive science and linguistic theories. -/- In Chapter 1 we argue for identifying a part of meaning, the so-called referential meaning (model-checking), with algorithms. Moreover, we discuss the influence of computational complexity theory on cognitive tasks. We give some arguments to treat as cognitively tractable only those problems which can be computed in polynomial time. (...) Additionally, we suggest that plausible semantic theories of the everyday fragment of natural language can be formulated in the existential fragment of second-order logic. -/- In Chapter 2 we give an overview of the basic notions of generalized quantifier theory, computability theory, and descriptive complexity theory. -/- In Chapter 3 we prove that PTIME quantifiers are closed under iteration, cumulation and resumption. Next, we discuss the NP-completeness of branching quantifiers. Finally, we show that some Ramsey quantifiers define NP-complete classes of finite models while others stay in PTIME. We also give a sufficient condition for a Ramsey quantifier to be computable in polynomial time. -/- In Chapter 4 we investigate the computational complexity of polyadic lifts expressing various readings of reciprocal sentences with quantified antecedents. We show a dichotomy between these readings: the strong reciprocal reading can create NP-complete constructions, while the weak and the intermediate reciprocal readings do not. Additionally, we argue that this difference should be acknowledged in the Strong Meaning hypothesis. -/- In Chapter 5 we study the definability and complexity of the type-shifting approach to collective quantification in natural language. We show that under reasonable complexity assumptions it is not general enough to cover the semantics of all collective quantifiers in natural language. The type-shifting approach cannot lead outside second-order logic and arguably some collective quantifiers are not expressible in second-order logic. As a result, we argue that algebraic (many-sorted) formalisms dealing with collectivity are more plausible than the type-shifting approach. Moreover, we suggest that some collective quantifiers might not be realized in everyday language due to their high computational complexity. Additionally, we introduce the so-called second-order generalized quantifiers to the study of collective semantics. -/- In Chapter 6 we study the statement known as Hintikka's thesis: that the semantics of sentences like ``Most boys and most girls hate each other'' is not expressible by linear formulae and one needs to use branching quantification. We discuss possible readings of such sentences and come to the conclusion that they are expressible by linear formulae, as opposed to what Hintikka states. Next, we propose empirical evidence confirming our theoretical predictions that these sentences are sometimes interpreted by people as having the conjunctional reading. -/- In Chapter 7 we discuss a computational semantics for monadic quantifiers in natural language. We recall that it can be expressed in terms of finite-state and push-down automata. Then we present and criticize the neurological research building on this model. The discussion leads to a new experimental set-up which provides empirical evidence confirming the complexity predictions of the computational model. We show that the differences in reaction time needed for comprehension of sentences with monadic quantifiers are consistent with the complexity differences predicted by the model. -/- In Chapter 8 we discuss some general open questions and possible directions for future research, e.g., using different measures of complexity, involving game-theory and so on. -/- In general, our research explores, from different perspectives, the advantages of identifying meaning with algorithms and applying computational complexity analysis to semantic issues. It shows the fruitfulness of such an abstract computational approach for linguistics and cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper provides a semantic analysis of admissible rules and associated completeness conditions for arbitrary deductive systems, using the framework of abstract algebraic logic. Algebraizability is not assumed, so the meaning and significance of the principal notions vary with the level of the Leibniz hierarchy at which they are presented. As a case study of the resulting theory, the nonalgebraizable fragments of relevance logic are considered.

A uniform theory of conditionals is one which compositionally captures the behavior of both indicative and subjunctive conditionals without positing ambiguities. This paper raises new problems for the closest thing to a uniform analysis in the literature (Stalnaker, Philosophia, 5, 269–286 (1975)) and develops a new theory which solves them. I also show that this new analysis provides an improved treatment of three phenomena (the import-export equivalence, reverse Sobel-sequences and disjunctive antecedents). While these results concern central (...) issues in the study of conditionals, broader themes in the philosophy of language and formal semantics are also engaged here. This new analysis exploits a dynamic conception of meaning where the meaning of a symbol is its potential to change an agent’s mental state (or the state of a conversation) rather than being the symbol’s content (e.g. the proposition it expresses). The analysis of conditionals is also built on the idea that the contrast between subjunctive and indicative conditionals parallels a contrast between revising and consistently extending some body of information. (shrink)

We present an analysis of the game semantics of general references introduced by Abramsky, Honda and McCusker which exposes the algebraic structure of the model. Using the notion of sequoidal category, we give a coalgebraic definition of the denotational semantics of storage cells of arbitrary type. We identify further conditions on the model which allow an axiomatic presentation of the proof that finite elements of the model are definable by programs, in the style of Abramsky’s Axioms for Definability.

Categorization is probably one of the most central areas in the study of cognition, language and information. However, there is a serious gap running through the semantic treatments of categories and concepts [3]. On one side we find the ’classical’, formal approach, based on logical considerations, that has lent itself well for computational applications. In this approach, concepts are defined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. On the other side is an informal approach to categorization that is (...) usually motivated by the results of psychological experiments and that has not found its way into technologies on a large scale. Concepts here are based on prototypes, stereotypical attributes and family resemblances, which have become the hallmark of cognitive semantics. Obviously, it is important to bridge this gap, for theoretical and practical reasons. (shrink)

Second-order quantifier elimination in the context of classical logic emerged as a powerful technique in many applications, including the correspondence theory, relational databases, deductive and knowledge databases, knowledge representation, commonsense reasoning and approximate reasoning. In the current paper we first generalize the result of Nonnengart and Szałas [17] by allowing second-order variables to appear within higher-order contexts. Then we focus on a semantical analysis of conditionals, using the introduced technique and Gabbay’s semantics provided in [10] and substantially using (...) a third-order accessibility relation. The analysis is done via finding correspondences between axioms involving conditionals and properties of the underlying third-order relation. (shrink)

The rise of causality and the attendant graph-theoretic modeling tools in the study of counterfactual reasoning has had resounding effects in many areas of cognitive science, but it has thus far not permeated the mainstream in linguistic theory to a comparable degree. In this study I show that a version of the predominant framework for the formal semantic analysis of conditionals, Kratzer-style premise semantics, allows for a straightforward implementation of the crucial ideas and insights of Pearl-style (...) causal networks. I spell out the details of such an implementation, focusing especially on the notions of intervention on a network and backtracking interpretations of counterfactuals. (shrink)

In this, the second of two articles outlining a theory of communicative competence, the author questions the ability of Chomsky's account of linguistic competence to fulfil the requirements of such a theory. ?Linguistic competence? for Chomsky means the mastery of an abstract system of rules, based on an innate language apparatus. The model by which communication is understood on this account contains three implicit assumptions, here called ?monologism?, ?a priorism?, and ?elementarism?. The author offers an outline of a theory (...) of communicative competence that is based on the negations of these assumptions. In opposing the first two assumptions he introduces distinctions, respectively, between semantic universals which process experiences and those that make such processing possible, and between semantic universals which precede all socialization and those that are linked to the conditions of potential socialization. Against elementarism, he argues that the semantic content of all possible natural languages does not consist of combinations of a finite number of meaning components. Differences in systems of classification preclude this, and such differences can be seen to infect all respects of intercultural comparison. Using the notion of ?performative utterance?, the author elucidates the role of dialogue?constitutive universals as part of the formal apparatus required of a?; speaker's capacity to communicate. He then notes what would be required of a general semantics based on a theory of communicative competence; and finally points out how this theory might be used for social analysis. (shrink)

The authors explore Carnap’s (1931) famous critique of Heidegger’s metaphysics and argue that, from the perspective of contemporary formal semantics of natural language, Carnap’s criticism is not convincing. Moreover, they provide direct empirical objections to Carnap’s criticism. In particular, using empirical evidence from languages like Russian that have negative concord, they show that Heidegger cannot be accused of assigning illegitimate logical forms to his sentences about Nothing because terms like “Nothing” can be used non-quantificationally and the fact that it (...) is not clear how their reference is established cannot be the reason why the corresponding sentences are ungrammatical (as Carnap seemed to suggest). The authors also critically discuss the view that natural language is insensitive to meaninglessness or contradiction. With reference to the work of J. Gajewsky, they show that this view is not true either. As a result of this investigation, they arrive at a position that an appeal to ungrammaticality like the one proposed by Carnap does not provide legitimate evidence against metaphysics. This conclusion relates to some recent criticism of the so-called non-analytical philosophers that can be traced back to Carnap’s paper. (shrink)

This book explores the semantic and pragmatic mechanisms underlying grammaticalization. Regine Eckardt argues that language change frequently involves a structural reorganization at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic levels. Speakers not only master the structural aspect of such reanalyses, they also-as the author argues-keep a detailed mental record of what has happened to meaning. The author develops semantic reanalysis as the semantic correlate and tracks its effects in meaning change. Several case studies offer new insights in the architecture (...) of conceptual thinking that is part of the human language faculty. Professor Eckardt develops her approach in terms of formal semantic theory. She shows how neatly tailored analyses in truth-conditional compositional semantics can elucidate the structural mechanisms of meaning change. Her exposition is advanced in the context of several in-depth case studies containing data new to historical linguistics. This book will be of central interest to scholars and advanced students of historical and comparative linguistics and of formal semantics in departments of linguistics and philosophy. (shrink)

We present a longitudinal computational study on the connection between emotional and amodal word representations from a developmental perspective. In this study, children's and adult word representations were generated using the latent semantic analysis (LSA) vector space model and Word Maturity methodology. Some children's word representations were used to set a mapping function between amodal and emotional word representations with a neural network model using ratings from 9‐year‐old children. The neural network was trained and validated in the child (...) semantic space. Then, the resulting neural network was tested with adult word representations using ratings from an adult data set. Samples of 1210 and 5315 words were used in the child and the adult semantic spaces, respectively. Results suggested that the emotional valence of words can be predicted from amodal vector representations even at the child stage, and accurate emotional propagation was found in the adult word vector representations. In this way, different propagative processes were observed in the adult semantic space. These findings highlight a potential mechanism for early verbal emotional anchoring. Moreover, different multiple linear regression and mixed‐effect models revealed moderation effects for the performance of the longitudinal computational model. First, words with early maturation and subsequent semantic definition promoted emotional propagation. Second, an interaction effect between age of acquisition and abstractness was found to explain model performance. The theoretical and methodological implications are discussed. (shrink)

This paper presents a detailed contrastive frame semantic analysis of arriving events in English and Spanish, attested through a corpus study. The framework and methodology of our research follows the FrameNet II Research Project housed at ICSI. First, we present a formal description of the Arriving frame as a subframe of the Motion frame: arriving encodes a basic subpart of our conceptualization of motion, namely the transition from moving to arriving at a goal. Second, we carry out (...) a cross-linguistic analysis of this frame, based on a corpus study of English and Spanish arriving predicates. A first assumption would suggest that these two languages share a basic abstract frame description for arriving events. While acknowledging this, we yet show that at a lexical level the particular lexicalization patterns of each language influence the way speakers bring onto stage the different participants of the scene. We discuss this issue through a study of implicit frame elements, conflation and incorporation patterns, profiling, and deixis. Third, we briefly introduce the question of polysemy for those predicates that participate in the arriving frame. Arguably, the spatial meaning of arriving is the core sense from which a set of sense extensions derives, pointing to a wide range of independent frames (e.g. Cognition frame, Achievement frame, etc.) This fact can be attested in both languages in a parallel way. The different senses can be described synchronically in terms of frame semantics, while motivation for them is to be found in the cognitive processes of Metaphor (across frames), and Fictive Motion (within frame). (shrink)

In this pioneering book Kasia Jaszczolt lays down the foundations of an original theory of meaning in discourse, reveals the cognitive foundations of discourse interpretation, and puts forward a new basis for the analysis of discourse processing. She provides a step-by-step introduction to the theory and its application, and explains new terms and formalisms as required. Dr Jaszczolt unites the precision of truth-conditional, dynamic approaches with insights from neo-Gricean pragmatics into the role of speaker's intentions in communication. She shows (...) that the compositionality of meaning may be understood as merger representations combining information from various sources including word meaning and sentence structure, various kinds of default interpretations, and conscious pragmatic inference. Among the applications the author discusses are constructions that pose problems in semantic analysis such as referring expressions, propositional attitude constructions, presupposition, modality, numerals, and sentential connectives. She proposes solutions to cutting edge problems in the semantics/pragmatics interface - for example, how many levels of meaning should be distinguished; the status of underspecification; how much contextual information should be placed in the representation of the speaker's meaning; whether there are default interpretations; the stage of utterance interpretation at which pragmatic inference begins; and whether compositionality is a necessary feature of the theory of meaning and if so how it is to be defined.The book is for students and researchers in semantics, pragmatics, computational linguistics, and philosophy of language at advanced undergraduate level and above. (shrink)

This paper presents a semantical analysis of the Weak Kleene Logics Kw3 and PWK from the tradition of Bochvar and Halldén. These are three-valued logics in which a formula takes the third value if at least one of its components does. The paper establishes two main results: a characterisation result for the relation of logical con- sequence in PWK – that is, we individuate necessary and sufficient conditions for a set.

The well-known formal semantics of conditionals due to Stalnaker Studies in logical theory, Blackwell, Oxford, 1968), Lewis, and Gärdenfors The logic and 1140 epistemology of scientific change, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1978, Knowledge in flux, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1988) all fail to distinguish between trivially and nontrivially true indicative conditionals. This problem has been addressed by Rott :345–370, 1986) in terms of a strengthened Ramsey Test. In this paper, we refine Rott’s strengthened Ramsey Test and the corresponding analysis (...) of explanatory relations. We show that our final analysis captures the presumed asymmetry between explanans and explanandum much better than Rott’s original analysis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 127-129 [Access article in PDF] Linguistic Markers of Recovery:Underpinnings of First Person Pronoun Usage and Semantic Positions of Patients Patrick Suppes Keywords: association, freedom, habits, psychotherapy, roles, semantics. USING LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE to evaluate recovering psychotherapy patients is an attractive and useful idea. I agree with much of Dr. van Staden's proposals for doing so. The purpose of this commentary is to (...) give some comments and criticisms on points of detail. Roles, Not Semantics A fair amount of Dr. van Staden's article is concerned with the semantics of relations. The focus on relations is a good thing. Restricting discourse about patients to properties is not sufficient, for everyone regards how a person is relating to others, and even to other things, as an important feature of normal behavior and mental health. We do not want just to report, "John was upset," but consider it definitely more informative to say, "John was upset by his father's criticisms." The English language and all other natural languages are rich in verbs for expressing relations with emotional affect between two or more persons, or a person and an event or thing. Staden's article focuses on the interesting and important case of first person pronouns. To go from saying, "She made me do it" to "I did it" is, for reasons that need not be spelled out, a sign of progress. A way to describe this change is that the speaker has indicated that in the implicit context assumed he or she has shown signs of moving from the role of being a patient to that of being an actor, from being a recipient of actions to being a performer of acts.van Staden concentrates on the semantics of relations to bring out what I call the change of roles. I would certainly agree that such change of roles is important to the semantics of affective or action verbs and verb phrases. We have no disagreement at all about this. Yet I am critical of his wanting to range much wider in his analysis of semantics. The logical or formal treatment of relations is a large topic, full of many distinctions and subtleties that seem to me not too relevant to his main theme. In a very general way he wants to say that what is usually thought of as [End Page 127] the first position in a relation, what he calls the alpha position, is occupied by the owner of the relation, and the second position, in a binary relation—the main case discussed—is occupied by the accidental to that particular relation. This second position is called the omega position.This runs contrary to much of the mathematical literature on relations, which occupy an important place in many parts of mathematics such as geometry. So when we say that one triangle is larger than another, it seems positively weird to say the second triangle is somehow accidental to the relation. But this is true and confusing even for the familiar and classical kinds of actions often cited by van Staden. In analyzing the sentence "Brutus killed Caesar intentionally" it sounds really strange to say that Caesar occupied the accidental position in the expressed relation of killing.Moreover, in the conceptual and philosophical discussion of relations, it is common practice to stress that even if the natural grammar of a sentence has a subject-predicate structure, as in "Elizabeth is the mother of Charles," no special logical force is given to what van Staden calls the first or alpha position in most mathematical relations, such as "The number 2 is less than the number 3," expressed in ordinary mathematical notation as "2 < 3."On the other hand, I stress that it is natural to distinguish in a relational sentence expressing an action between the role of actor and the role of patient, no matter which is the grammatical subject of the sentence, as in the following pair "John hurt Mary" and "Mary was hurt by John." The roles of actor... (shrink)

We use formal semantic analysis based on new constructions to study abstract realizability, introduced by Läuchli in 1970, and expose its algebraic content. We claim realizability so conceived generates semantics-based intuitive confidence that the Heyting Calculus is an appropriate system of deduction for constructive reasoning.Well-known semantic formalisms have been defined by Kripke and Beth, but these have no formal concepts corresponding to constructions, and shed little intuitive light on the meanings of formulae. In particular, (...) the completeness proofs for these semantics do not generate confidence in the sufficiency of the Heyting Calculus, since we have no reason to believe that every intuitively constructive truth is valid in the formal semantics.Läuchli has proved completeness for a realizability semantics with formal concepts analogous to constructions. We argue in some detail that, in spite of a certain inherent inexactness of the analogy, every intuitively constructive truth is valid in Läuchli semantics, and therefore the Heyting Calculus is powerful enough to prove all constructive truths. Our argument is based on the postulate that a uniformly constructible object must be communicable in spite of imprecision in our language, and that the permutations in Läuchli's semantics represent conceivable imprecision in a language, while allowing a certain amount of freedom in choosing the particular structure of the language.We give a detailed generalization of Läuchli's proof of completeness for the propositional part of the Heyting Calculus, in order to make explicit constructive and algebraic content.In our treatment, we establish several new results about Läuchli models. We show how to extend the sconing and gluing constructions familiar from Kripke and Frame semantics and Topos theory, to Läuchli models, and use them to give an algebraic approach to countermodel construction. In particular, the Läuchli arguments are given without the restriction to the integers, Z, as a group of permutations, which makes much of the coding scheme used in Läuchli's original paper transparent.We also make use of a new propositions-as-types syntax for the Heyting calculus, with limited nondeterminism, in which validity of formulae can be decided without loop-detection. (shrink)

Introduction. PHilosophy of Language and Linguistics: The Formal Turn Piotr Stalmaszczyk Gottlob Frege, Philosophy of Language, and Predication Piotr Stalmaszczyk Philosophy, Linguistics and Semantic Interpretation Christian Bassac An Unresolved Issue: Nonsense in Natural Language and Non-Classical Logical and Semantic Systems Elzbieta Chrzanowska-Kluczewska Varieties of Context-Dependence Tadeusz Ciecierski The Logos of Semantic Structure Marie Du í, Bjørn Jespersen and Pavel Materna The Good Samaritan and the Hygienic Cook: A Cautionary Tale About Linguistic Data Chris Fox The Meaning (...) of Multiple Quantified Sentences: Where Formal Semantics Meets Psycholinguistics Justyna Grudzinska The Hybrid Theory of Reference for Proper Names Filip Kawczynski On the Nature of Statistical Language Laws Agnieszka Kulacka Vagueness and Contextualism Joanna Odrowaz-Sypniewska The Myth of Semantic Structure Jaroslav Peregrin Scalar Implicatures, Communication and Language Evolution Salvatore Pistoia Reda Semantics and Contextuality: The Case of Pia s Leaves Stefano Predelli Is Logico-Semantical Analysis of Natural Language Expressions a Translation? Jirí Raclavský Beyond the Fregean Myth: The Value of Logical Values Fabien Schang Modal Calculus of Illocutionary Logic Andrew Schumann Subjectivity in Philosophy and Linguistics Barbara Sonnenhauser Asymmetrical Semantics Mieszko Talasiewicz Truth: An Anti-realist Adequacy Condition Luca Tranchini Belief Reports: Defaults, Intentions and Scorekeeping Giacomo Turbanti On Truth in Time Bartosz Wieckowski Order William J. SUllivan Indexes. (shrink)

The idea to use choice functions in the semantic analysis of indefinites has recently gained increasing attention among linguists and logicians. A central linguistic motivation for the revived interest in this logical perspective, which can be traced back to the epsilon calculus of Hilbert and Bernays (1939), is the observation by Reinhart (1992,1997) that choice functions can account for the problematic scopal behaviour of indefinites and interrogatives. On-going research continues to explore this general thesis, which I henceforth adopt. (...) In this paper I would like to address the matter from two angles. First, given that the semantics of indefinites involves functions, it still does not follow that these have to be choice functions. The common practise is to stipulate this restriction in order to get existential semantics right. However, a so-far open question is whether there is any way to derive choice function interpretation from more general principles of natural language semantics. Another question that has not been formally accounted for yet concerns the relationships between choice functions and the ``specificity'' ``referentiality'' intuition of Fodor and Sag (1981) about indefinites. Is there a sense in which choice functions capture this popular pre-theoretical notion? In order to answer these questions, this paper proposes a revision in the treatment of choice functions in Winter (1997), leaving its linguistic predictions unaffected but changing slightly the compositional mechanism. This modification opens the way for proving the following theorem: function variables in the analysis of the noun phrase must denote only choice functions and can derive only the standard existential analysis by virtue of the conservativity, logicality and non-triviality universals of Generalized Quantifier Theory as proposed in Barwise and Cooper (1981), Van Benthem (1984), Thijsse (1983) and others. The same implementation also captures the ``specificity'' notion: indefinites with a non-empty restriction set denote principal ultrafilters in the revised formalization. These are the quantificational correlates to ``referential'' individuals.. (shrink)

The author has constructed a concept of conditionals by synthetizing and developing unconnected insights scattered through the literature. The result is incorporated in a formal deductive system, based on a series of "paradox-free" systems initiated by Alonzo Church and interpreted according to principles suggested chiefly by Everett Nelson and by Anderson and Belnap. The basic concept is the sufficiency relation holding between clauses of a conditional, or rather between the relevant states of affairs asserted by the clauses. The (...) logic of sufficiency is developed by using a phenomenological method, much like that of the ordinary-language linguists, to place restrictions on truth-functional logic. For example, conjunction is replaced by adjunction [ = df. ~ ] and this concept is used to modify modus ponens and simplification. Relevance requirements avoid the paradoxes of material implication. These principles, together with a number of physical modalities and some modifications of the concept of induction, are used to attack Goodman's paradox and the paradoxes of confirmation, and to form a concept of cause. The formal system incorporates the principles judged desirable by the analysis of how conditionals are used in discourse. Mr. Barker is modest in his claims, emphasizing that his material is not original and saying only that some of the famous paradoxes "show signs of yielding." Interested students will be grateful for this monograph. It is a valuable compendium of widely scattered work of a difficult and complicated subject, and should be both helpful and stimulating. Moreover, it is particularly clear and readable.--L. G. (shrink)

We bring out syntactic and semantic similarities of two types of conditionals with fronted antecedents [normal indicative conditionals and biscuit conditionals ] and two types of left dislocation constructions in German, which mark two types of topicality. On the basis of these similarities we argue that NCs and BCs are aboutness topics and relevance topics, respectively. Our analysis extends the approach to aboutness topicality of Endriss to relevance topics to derive the semantic and pragmatic (...) contribution of left-dislocated DPs and applies it to an analysis of conditionals as pluralities of possible worlds. We show how this uniform approach to the interpretation of topicality accounts for the nominal left dislocation constructions as well as for the semantic and pragmatic effects observed in connection with the two types of conditionals. We furthermore discuss the potential of our proposal to deal with subjunctive biscuit conditionals, if-clauses modifying speech acts different from assertions, conditionals with right-dislocated if-clauses, and nested conditionals. (shrink)

In this research I will focus on a basis for a formal model based on an alternative kind of logic invented by Hans Götzsche: Occurrence Logic (Occ Log), which is not based on truth values and truth functionality. Also, I have taken into account tense logic developed and elaborated by A. N. Prior. In this article I will provide a conceptual and logical foundation for formal Occurrence Logic based on symbolic logic and will illustrate the most important relations (...) between symbolic logic and Occurrence Logic. There will be a special need to focus on arguments based on symbolic occurrence logic. The interrelationships and dependencies between symbolic logic and Occ Log could be conducive to an approach that can express and analyse ‘the occurrences of the world’s descriptions based on various logical principles at different moments’. Symbolic Occ Log checks the occurrence conditioning and the priority of occurrences by employing occurrence values. I shall conclude that the desired approach could gradually support me in providing a truth-functional independent first-order predicate calculus that could work on semantic analysis of different propositions within world descriptions. (shrink)

This book offers a semantic and metasemantic inquiry into the representation of meaning in linguistic interaction. Kasia Jaszczolt offers a new contextualist take on the semantics/pragmatics boundary, and argues that this is the only promising stance on meaning. This approach allows the selection of the cognitively plausible object of enquiry - namely the intended, primary meaning - and its adoption as a unit of semantic analysis despite the varying provenance of the contributing information. The analysis transcends (...) the said/implicated distinction and heavily relies on the dynamic construction of meaning in discourse, using truth conditions as a tool and at the same time conforming to pragmatic compositionality. Meaning in Linguistic Interaction builds on the author's earlier work on Default Semantics, and adds new arguments in favour of radical contextualism, particularly with regard to the role of salience, the dynamic nature of the unit that forms a basis of the interpretation process, and the flexibility of word meaning. It is illustrated with examples from a variety of languages and offers formal representations of meaning in the metalanguage of Default Semantics. (shrink)

This article deals with the subject and semantic analysis of human organs mentioned in the Holy Qur’ān. After the relevant verses were researched and identified in accordance with thematic commentary methodology, their scientific and semantic analysis was carried out objectively. The comments of commentators in this context were also examined in the study. After the verses in which the organs are found are researched, their definitions, then an objective and brief interpretation are made, and the (...) class='Hi'>semantic usage of each is shown. The subject consists of the organs in the head, the organs in the trunk, the organs in the body and limbs. As is known, human organs are attributed to Allah in the Qur’ān. While the predecessor avoided interpreting the organs attributed to Allah as they are, their successors interpreted them in accordance with the glory of Allah, based on the use of the Arabic language. However, some contemporary scholars say that such verses are representative narratives. In reality, there is nothing like Allah. However, God explains Himself with people's organs and actions so that they can understand His truth. These verses aim to explain the unknown world and its metaphors by comparing them to known events and phenomena in the world, and in this way to bring religious truths closer to the human mind. In the Qur’ān, expressions such as sealing or veiling the senses, as in the verse "Allah has sealed their hearts and ears, and there is a veil over their eyes, and there is a great torment for them" (al-Baqarah 2/7), also indicate the senses' deprivation of true perception expresses. The Holy Qur’ān takes care to mention the organs in the human body and uses them in many senses, both literal and figurative, in man's relationships in this world and the afterlife. He gives him examples of organs so that he can take lessons and advice, and reminds him of his beautiful creation and the blessings he gives because of these organs. The semantic uses of body organs in the Holy Qur’ān vary, as they contain literal connotations of the physiological meaning of the organ. This is a condition characterized by most of the organs mentioned once in the Holy Qur’ān. However, the connotations of the organs mentioned many times have varied and gone beyond their literal meanings, they have been used in figurative meanings and contain secondary connotations. It included many topics related to the existence, role and performance of humans in world life. For example, the hand is used for power, giving, blessing, dominance and specialization. Linguists did not distinguish between similar organs such as body, object and body, but on the contrary, they compared them to each other to the point of creating confusion. However, while interpreting them, many commentators have tried to separate them according to the context of the verse and take into account the differences in meaning between them. The organs are mentioned in general terms in the Holy Qur’ān, but the details they contain are not touched upon. For example: It talks about the head, but does not touch the hair, eyelashes and brain. It is talking about bones and does not touch parts such as the skull, ribcage, pelvis, and thighs. It mentions the abdomen but does not mention its parts such as the belly button, esophagus, stomach, liver, kidney, bile and bladder. In addition, in the Holy Quran, there are organ names in the human body that are used metaphorically in different meanings rather than expressing the reality of the organs. Esophagus (المريء) is one such expression. This expression is used in the sense of blessing for eating and drinking. For example, it is used in this sense in the verse, "Give women their dowry as a matter of right (with good will), and if they voluntarily donate some of that dowry to you, enjoy it with pleasure" (an-Nisa: 4/4). For example, Liver (الكبد) in the verse "We created man among difficulties" (el-Beled: 9/4), it expresses difficulties and constant troubles. The study deals with the sixty-two organs mentioned in the Holy Qur’ān and includes all the organs in the internal and external parts of the body mentioned in six hundred and forty-five verses. These are six hundred organs in total in the Qur’ān, in accordance with the statistics we made during our research. It is used ninety-one times. (shrink)

A globally expressivist analysis of the indicative conditional based on the Ramsey Test is presented. The analysis is a form of ‘global’ expressivism in that it supplies acceptance and rejection conditions for all the sentence forming connectives of propositional logic (negation, disjunction, etc.) and so allows the conditional to embed in arbitrarily complex sentences (thus avoiding the Frege–Geach problem). The expressivist framework is semantically characterized in a restrictor semantics due to Vann McGee, and is completely axiomatized in a (...) logic dubbed ICL (‘Indicative Conditional Logic’). The expressivist framework extends the AGM (after Alchourron, Gärdenfors, Makinson) framework for belief revision and so provides a categorical (‘yes’–‘no’) epistemology for conditionals that complements McGee’s probabilistic framework while drawing on the same semantics. The result is an account of the semantics and acceptability conditions of the indicative conditional that fits well with the linguistic data (as pooled by linguists and from psychological experiments) while integrating both expressivist and semanticist perspectives. (shrink)

The multilevel conversational exchanges between a mentor and a learner could be seen as a radical constructivist account of their comprehensions. The process of knowledge construction could be realised to have significant importance in the context of mentor-learner interactions. The most important fundamental is that ‘the conversational exchanges between mentors and learners ask questions and give answers concerning their individual conceptions, comprehensions and reasonings’. These questions and answers are the main building blocks of the ‘Relations’ between mentors and learners. In (...) this article, I will employ Predicate Logic in order to focus on the relationships between learners and mentors. This research will—conceptually and logically—be concerned with [formal] semantic analysis of mentoring-learning relationships in the context of constructivist interactions. The conclusions will shed light on how a [formal] semantics for constructivist interactions is established. (shrink)

Recent work on mood choice considers fine-grained semantic differences among desire predicates (notably, ‘want’ and ‘hope’) and their consequences for the distribution of indicative and subjunctive complement clauses. In that vein, this paper takes a close look at ‘intend’. I show that cross-linguistically, ‘intend’ accepts nonfinite and subjunctive complements and rejects indicative complements. This fact poses difficulties for recent approaches to mood choice. Toward a solution, a broad aim of this paper is to argue that—while ‘intend’ is loosely in (...) the family of desire predicates—it differs from ‘want’ and ‘hope’ in that it has a causative component, and this is relevant to its mood choice behavior, given that causative predicates also systematically reject indicative complements. More concretely, my analysis has three ingredients: (i) following related proposals in philosophy, intention reports have causally self-referential content; (ii) encoding causal self-reference requires abstraction over the complement clause’s eventuality argument; and (iii) nonfinite and subjunctive clauses enable such abstraction but indicative clauses do not. Aside from causative predicates, independent support for the proposal comes from the syntax of belief-/intention-hybrid attitude predicates like ‘decide’ and ‘convince’, anankastic conditional antecedents, aspectual predicates, and memory and perception reports. Synthesizing this result with that of previous literature, the emergent generalization is that subjunctive mood occurs in attitude reports that involve either comparison or eventuality abstraction. Toward a unified theory of mood choice, I suggest that both comparison and eventuality abstraction represent departures from the clausal semantics of unembedded assertions and consequently that subjunctive mood signals such a departure. (shrink)

A basic aim of E. Beth's work in philosophy of science was to explore the use of formal semantic methods in the analysis of physical theories. We hope to show that a general framework for Beth's semantic analysis is provided by the theory of semi-interpreted languages, introduced in a previous paper. After developing Beth's analysis of nonrelativistic physical theories in a more general form, we turn to the notion of the 'logic' of a physical (...) theory. Here we prove a result concerning the conditions under which semantic entailment in such a theory is finitary. We argue, finally, that Beth's approach provides a characterization of physical theory which is more faithful to current practice in foundational research in the sciences than the familiar picture of a partly interpreted axiomatic theory. (shrink)

Much ado – and increased complexity – is generally the case when it comes to checking formally the (intended) meaning of programs, as formal semantics for programs are typically extrinsic to both them and the formal grammars that generate the programming languages in which they are written. The van Wijngaarden grammars, on the contrary, have an intrinsic semantics in the sense that their rules contain or express the (intended) meaning of the terminal strings generated by them. This intrinsicness (...) allows for preservation of meaning both in syntactic change and context-sensitive conditions. In order better to show the intrinsicness of the semantics of the van Wijngaarden grammars I contrast them with the attribute grammars, a frequent choice when the semantic analysis of programming languages is called for (e.g., in compilation). (shrink)

The article defects priority idiological and centenary positions of the Ukrainian society in the 19th century. The acceptance of consciousness and self-relevant is characterized by a comprehensive analysis. The aim and the tasks: вy working out ethical and philosophical literature, to justify the establishment of dignity of personality in the conditions of domestic cultural and socio-political selfdetermination of the late twentieth century.Research methods are the main methods of research are historical, structuralfunctional, systemic and comparative. To solve specific research tasks (...) also used the principles of systemicity, objectivity, ascension from abstract to concrete, etcEmphades of a new state in ethical and phylosophic keys, analyzes the values of Ukrainians, slogans, native ideas are analyzed. Research results: Scientifically illustrated embodies of the national self-release of the Ukrainian society: Selfrelease of the Naziological State Ukraine: Sovereignty of Ukraine (1985-1991 gg.); Nassional State Formation of Ukraine in the conditions of socio-purity and socioeconomic neoperedelenost (1992-1996 gg.); Creation of oligarchata as a diverse manifestation of a democratic regime in Ukraine (1996-2004 gg.); Polarization of the Farility (2005-2014 gg.); Thick ethape, which is purely formally defined as "post-revolutionary". The author exemplary aspects of the social realities of the reorganization, and the presentation of honor and dignity of the license. Discussion. It is condemned that for the self-release of the national state, the slide of restructuring of steel, the significant income from the public discourse of the topics of repressions, reversed to the families of the species of culture, science, public expressions, popularization of the creativity of the dyspasses and diaspree Figur. Conclusion. In such a way, the protest in the second half of the 1980s is Pastepeno Gladenna, which has received the introduction of privacy in its own participants.Many were re-enriched, rising from the laurel of the prison establishment, the inside of the country, and in the finishing of the bobs for Naziovnoye venereal, the rule of law and market economy. The dignity of a person on the day of restructuring, in the whole, was disturbed from the ancestors of the historical objects of the maintenance of the specialty – Ego Simbiosis with such categories, as freedom, will be, independence. (shrink)

This paper develops a model theoretic semantics for so called “natural kind terms” that reflects the viewpoint of (Kripke, 1980) and (Putnam, 1975). The semantics generates a formal counterpart of the “K-mechanism” investigated in (Salmon, 1981) and in unpublished work by Keith Donnellan.