An essay in universal semantics
This short book presents a very general semantic theory that aims to make minimal assumptions about the structure both of languages and of models. In particular, it allows that there not be a powerful fit between the two, e.g., some expressions might lack semantic value while others have more than one, without generating logical catastrophe. This is based, in effect, on a generalization of supervaluational techniques. A language, \(L\), is a triple \(({\mathbf s},{\mathbf g},{\mathbf E})\) where \({\mathbf s}\) is a function whose range are the symbols of \(L\) indexed by type, \({\mathbf E}\) is a system of sets such that the union of its range comprise the expressions of \(L\) generated from the symbols by repeated applications of the structural operation \({\mathbf g}\). Similarly, a model, \(M\), for \(L\) is a structure \(({\mathbf d},{\mathbf h},{\mathbf I})\) whose elements are functions satisfying essentially the same conditions as those imposed of \({\mathbf s}\), \({\mathbf g}\), and \({\mathbf E}\). Semantics lies in the relation between the language and its models; that is, in the notion of valuation of a language on a model. Models that provide at least one denotation for every symbol in \(L\) are complete for \(L\), while those that provide at most one denotation for every symbol are consistent for \(L\). Models that are both complete and consistent are sharp. If \(M\) is complete for \(L\) there is at least one homomorphism from \(L\) into \(M\); if \(M\) is consistent for \(L\), there is at most one such homomorphism; and if \(M\) is sharp for \(L\), there is exactly one. The converses hold as well. If all models for \(L\) were sharp, the standard, classical account of valuation would do. When incomplete inconsistent models are allowed, a more general account is needed. Incomplete and inconsistent models may, however, be seen as generated from sharp models by contractions or expansions, and so valuation on such models may be defined, much as in supervaluational theory, by reference to the class of sharp models that generate the given model. In this book, the details of the definitions are worked out in fully precise detail. The account is also illustrated through languages of increasing complexity, beginning with typical propositional languages and extending through type theory. It is then shown that allowing for non-sharp models has little effect for the concept of logical validity for expressions; what is valid in all models will be what is valid in all sharp models. When it comes to entailment, however, the situation changes, for the class of all inference valid in all models seems in general not recursively specifiable. (This situation is familiar from supervaluation theory, but it is here significantly generalized.) The book concludes with some remarks about what to make of this general framework and the results that follow from it, and pointing toward potential applications of it. There is also an Appendix that presents the basic set theory, its notation and terminology, used in the preceding development.
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