nLab Montague semantics

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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)

References

The original articles:

Review:

  • Dowty, D., Wall, R., and Peters, S., 1981, Introduction to Montague Semantics (Synthese Language Library 11), Dordrecht: Reidel.

See also:

Last revised on October 9, 2020 at 09:43:32. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.