Content

This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the field of formal semantics. Formal semantics is the study of meaning by making use of logico-mathematical tools and is rooted in modern logic, the philosophy of language, and linguistics. The course is structured in four parts:

(1) Introduction to formal semantics and some of its main assumptions, propositional logic, predicate logic, and some variants on, and deviations from, standard logic. This part concludes with a discussion of notions of meaning that go beyond truth-conditional approaches.

(2) Extension/intension distinction and focus on intensional propositional and intensional predicate logic. The student is also introduced to the theory of types, categorial grammar and the notion of lambda abstraction.

(3) Intensional theory of types and Montague grammar.

(4) Recent developments in formal semantics: theory of generalized quantifiers, situation semantics, and discourse representation theory (depending on the progress made by, and interests of, the students).

Course material

The course will be based on the following two volumes:

1) Gamut, L.T.F. Logic, Language, and Meaning. Volume 1: Introduction to Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

2) Gamut, L.T.F. Logic, Language, and Meaning. Volume 2: Intensional Logic and Logical Grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Slides and extra background material will be made available on Toledo.

Format: more information

Students are required to attend and actively participate during the lectures. After each class, there will be assigned exercises that the students are supposed to prepare at home for the next class.