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Agnostic Possible Worlds Semantics

  • Conference paper
Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics (LACL 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 7351))

Abstract

Working within standard classical higher-order logic, we propose a possible worlds semantics (PWS) which combines the simplicity of the familiar Montague semantics (MS), in which propositions are sets of worlds, with the fine-grainedness of the older but less well-known tractarian semantics (TS) of Wittgenstein and C.I. Lewis, wherein worlds are maximal consistent sets of propositions. The proposed agnostic PWS makes neither montagovian nor tractarian ontological commitments, but is consistent with (and easily extensible to) either alternative (among many others). It is technically straightforward and, we believe, capable of everything linguists need PWS to do, such as interfacing with a logical grammar and serving as a basis for dynamic semantics.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Andrew Plummer & Carl Pollard

Authors
  1. Andrew Plummer
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  2. Carl Pollard
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. LINA UMR 6241, Université de Nantes, 2, rue de la Houssinière, BP 92208, 44322, Nantes Cedex 3, France

    Denis Béchet  & Alexander Dikovsky  & 

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Plummer, A., Pollard, C. (2012). Agnostic Possible Worlds Semantics. In: Béchet, D., Dikovsky, A. (eds) Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics. LACL 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7351. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31262-5_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31262-5_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31261-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31262-5

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