Language and logics. An introduction to the logical foundations of language (Q2831330)

This is a textbook intended for introducing linguistics students into some principal divisions of modern non-classical logic. Accordingly, the emphasis is put on the relationships between language and logic structures, semantic justification of logical forms, grammar interpretation of reasoning procedures, and the like. The book is divided into four parts.NEWLINENEWLINEThe first (introductory) part essentially recapitulates some presupposed material concerning classical propositional and first-order logic. The bulk of the text is of elementary level, such as truth tables, or explaining categorical judgments of traditional logic by Venn diagrams and translating them into the first-order language. Nevertheless, the last chapter of this part introduces the basics of more sophisticated material related to Montague semantics, typed lambda calculus, higher-order logics and combinators.NEWLINENEWLINEThe second part is devoted to modal logics. As in the previous part (and generally in the book) we do not find here rigorous presentation of logical systems with a detailed elaboration of all the formal specifications. The author rather places greater focus on presenting main ideas, their informal explanations and semantic definitions. Thus, he explains ``three strands of thought underlying the emergence of modern modal logic in the early twentieth century'': the importance of modal reasoning as such, the inquiry into strict implication initiated by Lewis, and Fregean distinction between sense and denotation. The key points of Kripke's possible world semantics are introduced in considerable detail. The presentation is not limited to aletic modalities, but also comprises some central notions of deontic, doxastic and temporal logics. Issues of quantified and higher-order modal formalism is considered as well.NEWLINENEWLINEPart III ``Negation and partiality'' deals with many-valued logics, situation semantics and intuitionistic logic. Among many-valued logics the topics of partial and paraconsistent logics are covered at length. The author thoroughly describes the ``useful four-valued logic'' based on Belnapian truth values, observing their characterization as ``generalized truth values'' (although only in an endnote with no attribution). Such themes as presuppositions, probability and fuzziness are also addressed. The last chapter of this part elucidates the main features of intuitionistic logic, Kripke's relational semantics, Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov interpretation, superintuitionistic logics and Curry-Howard isomorphism.NEWLINENEWLINEThe last part of the book is the most relevant to the linguistic issues, handling such topics as substructural logics and categorical grammar. The chapter about combinatorial logic is of especial importance, since it in effect summaries and coordinates the material from the previous chapters.NEWLINENEWLINETo sum up, this book is a suitable source for undergraduates (and not only in linguistics) to get a general picture about the field of modern non-classical logics, which can serve as a background for further more advanced readings.