Meaning as a Set-theoretic Object. A Gentle Introduction to the Ideas Behind Formal Semantics

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985955%3A_____%2F25%3A00638843" target="_blank" >RIV/67985955:_____/25:00638843 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Meaning as a Set-theoretic Object. A Gentle Introduction to the Ideas Behind Formal Semantics

Original language description

Any comprehensive account of natural language must involve an answer to the question What is meaning? And prima facie, the answer may seem to be not too difficult: meaning is a thing that get “expressed” by an expression. Troubles begin when we go on asking what kind of thing it is. And there may also be a question whether it is a thing at all. Fifty years ago, a radical attempt to answer such question was made by the founding fathers of what has become known later as formal (or model-theoretical) semantics (Montague, D. Lewis, Cresswell, …). As for the kind of thing meaning is, they basically followed Frege in situating them in the “third realm”, different from the realm of physical, spatio-temporal things and also from the realm of mental contents. They, however, made use of the fact that since Frege’s time the realm has been thoroughly researched and mostly colonized by set theory. Therefore, formal semanticists took meaning to be a set. This approach to semantics yielded a vast number of interesting results both concerning the logico- philosophical nature of meaning and concerning particular meanings of various natural language expressions. Yet the general contribution of formal semantics to our understanding of meaning still waits for a thorough evaluation. And this is something what Peregrin undertakes in this book. As the heyday of formal semantics is long over now, he can be consider it with the benefit of hindsight, and with such a detachment we can see things which are not so clearly seen before. The author considers four kinds of semantic models of language: the extensional one, the intensional one, hyperintensional ones and dynamic ones. He delves into each of them in some detail to illustrate the inner mechanisms of their working and the ideas behind them. The book is not meant to compete with the numerous introductions to formal semantics which have been published in recent decades, Peregrin is interested much more in the whys than the hows.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

B - Specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA23-07119S" target="_blank" >GA23-07119S: MEANING AS AN OBJECT – PRINCIPLES OF SEMANTIC THEORIES</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

ISBN

978-1-84890-491-0

Number of pages

200

Publisher name

College Publications

Place of publication

London

UT code for WoS book

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