Algebraic Semantics in Language and Philosophy

by Godehard Link

Overview

The philosophical approach of this volume is mainly structuralist, using logical tools to investigate the formal structure of various kinds of objects in our world, as characterised by language and as systematised by philosophy. This volume mainly analyses the structural properties of collections or pluralities (with applications to the philosophy of set theory), homogeneous objects like water, and the semantics and philosophy of events. This book thereby complements algebraic work that has been done on other philosophical entities, i.e. propositions, properties, relations, or situations. Located in the triangle of language, logic and philosophy, this volume is unique in combining the resources of different fields in an interdisciplinary enterprise. Half of the fourteen chapters of this volume are original papers, complementing the collection of the author's previously published essays on the subject.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781575860916
Publisher:	Center for the Study of Language and Inf
Publication date:	06/01/1997
Series:	Center for the Study of Language and Information - Lecture Notes Series
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction; The logical analysis of plurals and mass terms: a lattice-theoretical approach; Plural; Hydras. On the logic of relative clause constructions with multiple heads; Generalized Quantifiers and Plurals; Je drei Äpfel - three apples each: Quantification and the German je; First-Order Axioms for the Logic of Plurality; Ten Years of Research on Plurals - Where Do We Stand?; The French Revolution - a Philosophical Event?; Algebraic Semantics of Event Structures; The Ontology of Individuals and Events; Quantity and number; Algebraic semantics for Natural Language: Some philosophy, some applications; Language and ontology; Mereology, Second-order logic, and Set theory; Appendix: A chapter in lattice theory.