Quantifiers in Language and Logic / Edition 1

by Stanley Peters, Dag Westerstoahl

Overview

Quantification is a topic which brings together linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Quantifiers are the essential tools with which, in language or logic, we refer to quantity of things or amount of stuff. In English they include such expressions as no, some, all, both, and many. Peters and Westerstahl present the definitive interdisciplinary exploration of how they work—their syntax, semantics, and inferential role.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199291250
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/06/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	550
Product dimensions:	9.38(w) x 6.48(h) x 1.45(d)

Table of Contents

QuantificationI. The Logical Conception of Quantifiers and Quantification1. A Brief History of Quantification2. The Emergernce of Generalized Quanitifiers in Modern LogicII. Quantifiers of Natural Language3. Type [1] Quantifiers of Natural Language4. Type [1, 1] Quantifiers of Natural Language5. Monotone Quantifiers6. Symmetry and Other Relational Properties of Type [1, 1] Quantifiers7. Possessive Quantifiers8. Exceptive Quantifiers9. Which Quantifiers are Logical? 10. Some Polyadic Quantifiers of Natural LanguageIII. Beginnings of a Theory of Expressiveness, Translation, and Formalization11. The Concept of Expressivity12. Expressibility, Definability, CompositionalityIV. Logical Results of Expressibility with Linguistic Applications13. Definability and Undefinability in Logical Languages: Tools for the Monadic Case14. Applications to Monadic Definability15. EF-tools for Polyadic Quantifiers

Editorial Reviews

"This is a high-quality, informative, and authoritative study, offering a clear overview of the denotational semantics of natural language quantifiers, some new results, and a first frontal assault on analyzing the expressive power of natural languages. A substantial, interesting, challenging work."—Edward Keenan, UCLA

"This book gives a comprehensive account of quantifiers in both natural and formal languages, drawing on both linguistics and model theory. It creates a number of paradigms, because nothing so general has been attempted before. Much of the material is new or has never appeared in book form, but the authors have taken enormous care to pitch their exposition at a level that non-specialists can follow."—Wilfrid Hodges, Queen Mary University of London

From the Publisher