A formal approach to linguistics and natural language semantics, due to Richard Montague. In essence, it applies Frege's principle of compositionality to natural language.
In his own words:
There is in my opinion no important theoretical difference between natural languages and the artificial languages of logicians; indeed, I consider it possible to comprehend the syntax and semantics of both kinds of language within a single natural and mathematically precise theory. On this point I differ from a number of philosophers, but agree, I believe, with Chomsky and his associates.
(from Montague 70b)
The original articles:
Richard Montague, English as a formal language, Linguaggi nella societa e nella tecnica. Edizioni di Communita. pp. 188-221 (1970) (pdf)
Richard Montague, Universal Grammar, Theoria 36 (3):373–398 (1970) (doi:10.1111/j.1755-2567.1970.tb00434.x)
Richard Montague, The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English, Approaches to Natural Language (1973) (pdf)
Review:
See also:
Wikipedia, Montague grammar
Last revised on October 9, 2020 at 09:43:32. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.