Logic And Language

The logical study of language is becoming more interdisciplinary, playing a role in fields such as computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and game theory. This new edition, written by the leading experts in the field, presents an overview of the latest developments at the interface of logic and linguistics as well as a historical perspective. It is divided into three parts covering Frameworks, General Topics and Descriptive Themes. Completely revised and updated - includes over 25% new material Discusses the interface between logic and language Many of the authors are creators or active developers of the theories

The Logic of Our Language teaches the practical and everyday application of formal logic. Rather than overwhelming the reader with abstract theory, Jackson and McLeod show how the skills developed through the practice of logic can help us to better understand our own language and reasoning processes. The authors’ goal is to draw attention to the patterns and logical structures inherent in our spoken and written language by teaching the reader how to translate English sentences into formal symbols. Other logical tools, including truth tables, truth trees, and natural deduction, are then introduced as techniques for examining the properties of symbolized sentences and assessing the validity of arguments. A substantial number of practice questions are offered both within the book itself and as interactive activities on a companion website.

Although the two volumes of Logic, Language, and Meaning can be used independently of one another, together they provide a comprehensive overview of modern logic as it is used as a tool in the analysis of natural language. Both volumes provide exercises and their solutions. Volume 1, Introduction to Logic, begins with a historical overview and then offers a thorough introduction to standard propositional and first-order predicate logic. It provides both a syntactic and a semantic approach to inference and validity, and discusses their relationship. Although language and meaning receive special attention, this introduction is also accessible to those with a more general interest in logic. In addition, the volume contains a survey of such topics as definite descriptions, restricted quantification, second-order logic, and many-valued logic. The pragmatic approach to non-truthconditional and conventional implicatures are also discussed. Finally, the relation between logic and formal syntax is treated, and the notions of rewrite rule, automation, grammatical complexity, and language hierarchy are explained.

Taking linguistics students beyond the classical forms often taught in introductory courses, Language and Logics offers a comprehensive introduction to the wide variety of useful non-classical logics that are commonly used in research. Including a brief review of classical logic and its major assumptions, this textbook provides a guided tour of modal, many valued and substructural logics. The textbook starts from simple and intuitive concepts, clearly explaining the logics of language for linguistics students who have little previous knowledge of logic or mathematics. Issues are presented and discussed clearly before going on to introduce symbolic notation.While not avoiding technical detail, the book focuses throughout on helping students develop an intuitive understanding of the field, with particular attention to conceptual questions and to the tailoring of logical systems to thinking about different applications in linguistics and beyond. This is an ideal introductory volume for advanced undergraduates and beginning postgraduate students in linguistics, and for those specializing in semantics.

The Fundamentally Simple Logic of Language: Learning a Second Language with the Tools of the Native Speaker presents a data-driven approach to understanding how native speakers do not use subject and direct object to process language. Native speakers know who does what in a sentence by applying intuitively two simple inferences that are argued to be part of universal grammar. The book explains and exemplifies these two inferences throughout. These two inferences explain the native speaker’s ease of acquisition and use, and answer difficult questions for linguistics (transitivity, case, semantic roles) in such a way that undergraduate students and second language learners can understand these concepts and apply them to their own language acquisition. While Spanish is used as the primary example, the theory can be applied to many other languages. This book will appeal to teachers and learners of any second language, as well as linguists interested in second language acquisition, in second language teaching, and in argument structure.

In this volume Van der Auwera attempts to clarify the idea that language reflects both mind and reality and to elucidate the reflection idea by turning it into the cornerstone of a linguistic theory of meaning.

This Festschrift was published in honor of Andre Scedrov on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The 11 technical papers and 3 short papers included in this volume show the many transformative discoveries made by Andre Scedrov in the areas of linear logic and structural proof theory; formal reasoning for networked systems; and foundations of information security emphasizing cryptographic protocols. These papers are authored by researchers around the world, including North America, Russia, Europe, and Japan, that have been directly or indirectly impacted by Andre Scedrov. The chapter “A Small Remark on Hilbert's Finitist View of Divisibility and Kanovich-Okada-Scedrov's Logical Analysis of Real-Time Systems” is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

A wide-ranging collection of essays inspired by the memory of the cognitive psychologist John Macnamara.