Page 376 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Formal Semantics
grammar on the sentence level (see Van Eijck and Kamp 1997).
PTQdeals with only one type of sentence, declarative sentences, whose meanings can be described in terms of truth-conditions with respect to world-time indexes. This may be due to the fact that Montague grammar has its roots in mathematical logic. Yet other authors have tried to overcome this limitation by working on the semantics of questions and wh-comp- lements (Karttunen 1977; Groenendijk and Stokhof 1982,1997).
The PTQ model is based on a hierarchy of typed sets. Yet certain phenomena seem to resist such a treatment. Mass nouns seem to require sets without elements (Bunt 1979). Nominalizations seem to require a domain in which functions can havethem- selves as arguments (e.g., / love loving; see Chierchia 1982). Perception verbs challenge the basic role of possible worlds, which are abandoned by Barwise and Perry (1983), who replace them with 'situations' (though a classical model with partial functions (Mus- kens 1989) can be used as well).
Much research in Montague grammar is, however,
of a different nature, in that it aims less at improve-
ment of the formal tools than at a widening of the
range of phenomena treated. A characteristic example
is Bennett (1976): 'A variation and extension of a
Montague fragment of English.' Often, such pub-
lications contain interesting observations, discussions
with other theories, and an ingenious solution exhi-
biting some hidden regularity and providing an expla-
nation. Thus one finds treatments of relative clauses,
passives, scope phenomena, control, numbers, plurals,
generics, complement structures, and deictic
pronouns. Such publications are important because
they carry out Montague's program of giving a sys-
tematic account of the syntax and the semantics of
natural languages (for specific references, the reader
may consult the extensive bibliographies in Gamut
(1991) and Dowty, et al. (1981)), and Partee and Hen-
driks(1997). GroenendijkJAG,JanssenTMV,StokhofMBJ(eds.)
See also: Compositionality of Meaning; Intension; Intensionality; Meaning Postulate.
Bibliography
An introductory article on PTQ (Montague 1973) is van Eynde (1991), an introduction especially for linguists is Partee (1975), and a rather extended introduction is Gochet and Thayse (1989). A book that is frequently used as intro- duction to PTQis Dowty, et al. (1981). An excellent intro- duction to Montague grammar, with much attention to motivations and justifications, is Gamut (1991). An intro- ductory article on 'Universal grammar' (Montague 1970b) is Halvorsen and Ladusaw (1979); its mathematical back- ground is investigated in Janssen (1986a).
Many publications on Montague grammar have appeared in the proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquia (Gro- enendijk, et al. (eds.) 1981 1984); Landman and Veltman 1984; Groenendijk, et al. (eds.) 1986a and b; Bartsch, et al.
1981 Formal Methods in the Study of Language. Pro- ceedings of the Third Amsterdam Colloquium. MC-Tracts 135and 136.CWI, Amsterdam
Groenendijk J, Janssen T M V, Stokhof M (eds.) 1984 Truth, Interpretation, and Information. Selected Papers from the Third Amsterdam Colloquium. Grass-series 2. Foris, Dor- drecht
Groenendijk J, Jongh D de, Stokhof M (eds.) 1986a Foun- dations of Pragmatics and Lexical Semantics. Grass-series 7. Foris, Dordrecht
Groenendijk J, Jongh D de, Stokhof M (eds.) 1986b Studies in Discourse Representation Theory and the Theory of Gen- eralized Quantifier. Grass-series 8. Foris, Dordrecht
Groenendijk J, Stokhof M 1982 The syntax and semantics of wh-complements. Linguistics and Philosophy 5:175-233 Groenendijk J, Stokhof M 1989 Type-shifting rules and the semantics of interrogatives. In: Chierchia G, Partee B H, Turner R (eds.) Properties, Types and Meaning, vol. II.
Semantics Issues. Kluwer, Dordrecht
354
1989). Publications on Montague grammar often appear in Linguistics and Philosophy. For more references, see Dowty, et al. (1981), Gamut (1991) and Partee and Hendriks (1997).
Bartsch R, Benthem J van, Emde Boas P van 1989 Semantics and Contextual Expression. Grass-series 11. Foris, Dor- drecht
Barwise J, Cooper R 1981 Generalized quantifiers and natu- ral language. Linguistics and Philosophy 4:159-219
Barwise J, Perry J 1983 Situations and Attitudes. Bradford Books, Cambridge, MA
Bennett M 1976 A variation and extension of a Montague fragment of English. In: Partee B H (ed.) 1976
Benthem J van, Meulen A ter 1996 Handbook of Logic and Language. Elsevier and MIT Press, Amsterdam and Cam- bridge, MA
Bunt H C 1979 Ensembles and the formal properties of mass terms. In: Pelletier F J (ed.) Mass Terms. Reidel, Dordrecht
Chierchia G 1982 Nominalization and Montague grammar A semantics without types for natural languages. Linguis- tics and Philosophy 5:303-54
Cooper R H 1979 The interpretation of pronouns. In: Heny F, Schnelle H S (eds.) 1979
Dowty D R 1979 Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Synthese Language Library 7. Reidel, Dordrecht
Dowty D 1982 Grammatical relations and Montague gram- mar. In: Jacobson P, Pullum G K (eds.) 1982 The Nature of Syntactic Representation. Reidel, Dordrecht
Dowty D R, Wall R E, Peters S 1981 Introduction to Mon- tague Semantics.Synthese Language Library 11. Reidel, Dordrecht
Eijck J van, Kamp H 1996 Representing discourse in context. In: Benthem J van and Meulen A ter, Handbook of Logic and Language. Elsevier and MIT Press, Amsterdam and Cambridge, MA
Gamut L T F 1991 Logic, Language and Meaning, vol. II. Intensional Logic and Logical Grammar. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL
Gazdar G, Klein E, Pullum G, Sag 11985 Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar. Basil Blackwell, Oxford
Gochet P, Thayse A 1989 Intensional logic and natural lan- guage (ch. 2), Montague grammar (ch. 3). In: Thayse A (ed.) From Modal Logic to Deductive Databases. J. Wiley and Sons, Chichester