Essays in logical semantics (Q1089332)

This is a very comprehensive, sometimes however sketchy book concerning a great many of problems from the area of logical (semantic) analysis of natural language. The author's approach can be (not exhaustively) characterized as a search for such ''constraints on denotation'' (this is also the name of Part I) which - when making up a theory - can serve as criteria for distinguishing semantic universals of logical character from empirical regularities. This might be perhaps considered the most general common feature of the 10 Chapters of the book; Part I (Chapters 1-6) generalizes regularities found in the case of generalized quantifiers to other categories and continues with an analysis of conditionals, tense and modality; further, an idea of ''natural logic'' (''based directly on linguistic form'') is briefly presented. Part II (''Dynamics of Interpretation'') deals with categorial grammars and semantic automata (Chapters 7, 8). The most general Part III (''Methodology of Semantics'') deals with foundational problems of logical semantics and its relations to empirical science (Chapters 9, 10). Even when the problems dealt with in this work are rather general, the book contains many special theorems. The assortment of the proof methods used is very wide; a special role is played by the ''tree of numbers'', the exposition of which is rather sketchy. Some very essential contributions to solving problems of semantics could have been exploited if the author did not neglect Tichý's transparent intensional logic.