Montagues formal philosophy in china, chinese scholars began to read your compilation entitled montague grammar. Foundations of intensional semantics mit press journals. The principal sources of formal semantics formal semantics has roots in several disciplines, most importantly logic, philosophy, and linguistics. To us, the revolutionary idea in montague s ptq paper and earlier papers is the claim that natural language is not impossibly incoherent, as his teacher tarski had led us to believe, but that. Montagues treatment of determiner or quantifier phrases. The montague grammar is based on formal logic, especially higherorder predicate logic and lambda calculus, and makes use of the notions of intensional logic, via kripke models. Montague held the view that natural language was a formal language very much in the same sense as predicate logic was a formal language. As such, in montague s view, the study of natural language belonged to mathematics, and not to psychology thomason 1974, 2. Abstract full text formal semantics and pragmatics as they have developed since the late 1960s have been shaped by fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration among linguists, philosophers, and logicians, among others, and in turn have had noticeable effects on developments in syntax, philosophy of language, computational linguistics, and cognitive science. A comment on the new prediction paradox cargile, james, journal of symbolic logic, 1965.
Syntax syntax in montague grammar consists of syntactic rules and syntactic operations as. Montague grammar is an approach to natural language semantics, named after american logician richard montague. One tradition, call it the system perspective, thinks of a language as a collection of formal rules. Formal philosophy jeffry pelletier formal philosophy is a way of doing philosophy.
Martin gardner, the british journal of philosophy of science. Barbara h partee university of massachusetts amherst there have been centuries of study of logic and of language. In this paper, we address several puzzles concerning speech acts, particularly indirect speech acts. To us, the revolutionary idea in montagues ptq paper and earlier papers is the claim that natural language is not impossibly incoherent, as his teacher tarski had led us to believe, but that. Formal philosophy selected papers of richard montague edited and with an introduction byr i c h m o n d h. In this paper i describe the environment in which formal. Popper, the british journal of philosophy of science. Still, since the 1980s one has been unable to buy a new copy of richard montagues formal philosophy, a collection of papers published a few years after his violent death in 1971.
For one thing, intensions depend not only on worlds, but also on times. Other readers will always be interested in your opinion of the books youve read. Through the efforts of especially barbara partee e. No parsing algorithm was previously known to exist for these grammars. This paper also introduces the simply typed lambda. Still, since the 1980s one has been unable to buy a new copy of richard montague s formal philosophy, a collection of papers published a few years after his violent death in 1971. Like most philosophical schools, its members refuse to call their method a school, and prefer to point to the differences among themselves. Montague, one of tarskis most accomplished american students, spent his entire career teaching in the ucla department of philosophy, where he supervised the dissertations of nino cocchiarella and hans kamp. Montague semantics, nominalization and scotts domains. Property theory and the revision theory of definitions. It relies on rigid type distinctions at the grammatical level to circumvent the property theorists major problem, namely russells paradox, or, more generally, the paradoxes of predication. The most important figure in its history was richard montague 19301971, whose seminal works date from the late 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. Techniques of formal reasoning, 2e is an introductory volume that teaches students to recognize and construct correct deductions.
Pdf montagues treatment of determiner or quantifier. Montague treats all determiner phrases as belonging to type e t t, i. Nathan salmon department of philosophy uc santa barbara. Ill give an overview, and report some recent developments, of formal semantics in modern type theories mttsemantics for short 25, 14, 4. Richard montague was a mathematician, theorist and ucla. Nevertheless, given the expository purposes of this article, thats mostly what i will do. Nicholas asher and alex lascarides indirect speech.
Montague taught in the ucla philosophy department from 1955 until. As such, in montagues view, the study of natural language belonged to mathematics, and not to psychology thomason 1974, 2. Some aspects of montagues approach met with resistance or skepticism in the linguistics community, and some aspects were controversial among philosophers. Richard montague 19301971 was an american logician. The intertwining influences of logic, philosophy, and linguistics in. Proceedings of the ninth international conference on computational linguistics. We show how a formal semantic theory of discourse interpretation can be used to define speech acts and to avoid murky issues concerning the metaphysics of action. Montague grammar and transformational grammar, linguistic inquiry vi, 1975, and can perhaps be traced back to 1972.
He is best known for his groundbreaking work in linguistics. Congress for logic, methodology and philosophy of science in. Formal semantics and pragmatics as they have developed since the late 1960s have been shaped by fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration among linguists, philosophers, and logicians, among others, and in turn have had noticeable effects on developments in syntax, philosophy of language, computational linguistics, and cognitive science. Montague semantics stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
Formal capacity of montague grammars sciencedirect. The main logic article in the encyclopaedia britannica 1999 has described the first edition as the best starting point for exploring any of the topics in logic. Ucla library special collections language of material. At the university of california, berkeley, montague earned a b. Montague pioneered this approach in the 1960s and early 1970s. Ill focus on montagues contributions to the founding of formal semantics. Whether youve loved the book or not, if you give your honest and detailed thoughts then people will find new books that are right for them.
And before the birth of formal semantics in the late 1960s, most linguists and philosophers were agreed. A student of alfred tarski, montague made important contributions to set theory and model theory contributions to natural language semantics. Ug relates syntax and semantics by creating a formal interpretation of freges philosophy that an expressions meaning is a function of the meaning of its constituents and its syntax. An important, if obvious, moral of the story is that the question of whether natural language is logical, which may be viewed as a version of the question of whether natural language semantics is compositional, is a theorydependent matter. Thomason philosophy department university of michigan ann arbor, mi 481091003 u. It takes students through all logical stepsfrom premise to conclusionand presents appropriate symbols and terms, while giving examples to clarify principles. Semantics interface an overview sciencedirect topics. Barandregt, h 1977, the typefree lambda calculus,handbook of mathematical logic, ed. Pdf a new introduction to modal logic download full. Russells typetheory can be seen as a theory of properties, relations, and propositions prps in short, a property theory. Some philosophers and logicians have argued that natural language is logically deficient, or even that natural language has no logic. The following sections of this paper will examine syntax and semantics as handled in montague grammar. It takes students through all logical stepsfrom premise to conclusionand presents appropriate symbols and terms, while giving examples to clarifyprinciples. David kaplan, richard montague, notre dame journal of formal logic.
Formal philosophy, selected papers of richard montague. Montague grammar montagues universal grammar ug is a general theory of language developed to. Logic, 2e uses models to establish the invalidity of arguments, and includes. This last paper is especially important for its extension of tarskiis theorem to necessity, or necessary truth, as a. We provide a formally precise definition of indirect speech acts, including the subclass of socalled. My work pursues especially perplexing issues and problems in metaphysics through the investigation of language. Mar, 2018 montague treats all determiner phrases as belonging to type e t t, i.
On the history of the question of whether natural language. With montague as a central but not solo player in the story, i re. Formal philosophy selected papers of richard montague. The main result in this paper is a method for obtaining derivation trees from sentences of certain formal grammars. Montague grammar is more general and is commonly used to refer to anything within montagues three main texts concerning syntax and semantics.
Frege is regarded as a patron saint although some would want to trace their history. Montagues most famous paper on semantics, the proper treatment of quantification in ordinary english, has been anthologized in fact, a pdf of an anthology. Nonetheless, we can point to certain tendencies in this cult. Mttsemantics is a semantic framework for natural language, in the tradition of montagues semantics 21.
Therefore there is no independent or at least an agreed way to approach the problem. Montague grammar has often meant what montague did in the fragment in ptq and the. Like montagues semantics, tichys formal work is based on a type hierarchy with intensions mapping worlds to extensions at each type level, but it goes beyond montague in certain respects. Selected papers of richard montague, yale up new haven 1974. Montague grammar montague s universal grammar ug is a general theory of language developed to. The disciplines of semantics and pragmatics have roots in philosophy, but the research programs initiated largely by montague s 1974 theory of nat ural language semantics, austin s. Computational semantics with functional programming. Since then, as the first international scholar who introduced montague grammar, on which formal semantics is based, you have established a reputation among chinese scholars. Richard montague and the logical analysis of language. Some aspects of montague s approach met with resistance or skepticism in the linguistics community, and some aspects were controversial among philosophers. Formal philosophy, selected papers of richard montague edited and with an introduction by richmond h. Richard montague, on the paradox of grounded classes muller, gert heinz, journal of symbolic logic, 1956. Thomason 1978 british journal for the philosophy of science 29 2.
We mention three foundational issues that distinguish montague grammar, and formal semantics in general, from other approaches to semantics. Richard montague, towards a general theory of computability davis, martin, journal of symbolic logic, 1964. However, while montagues semantics is based on churchs simple type theory 5, 8 and. My first book, reference and essence princeton university press and basil blackwell, 1982, deals with a nest of issues in an area of overlap between the philosophy of language and metaphysics. Intensional logic stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
Richard montague was a logician and philosopher whose seminal works on language montague 1970a, 1970b, 1973 founded the theory known after his death as montague grammar, one of the main starting points for the field of formal semantics. The first edition has proved invaluable to generations of students and researchers in formal philosophy and language, as well as to consumers of logic in many applied areas. Lecture notes richard montague papers, 19481971 264 5 box 12, folder 3 philosophy 241. Montague, richard 193071 richard montague was a logician and. Formal semantics for causal constructions richmond h. Logic, 2e uses models to establish the invalidity of arguments, and includes exercise sets. Richard montague, the proper treatment of quantification in ordinary english, approaches to natural language 1973 r. My second book, freges puzzle ridgeview, 1986, 1991, belongs. The paper of montagues that had the most impact on linguists and on the subsequent development of formal semantics was ptq montague 1973. Pdf a new introduction to modal logic download full pdf. Formal semantics in modern type theories an overview.
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