This Handbook documents the main trends in current research between logic and language, including its broader influence in computer science, linguistic theory and cognitive science.
The history of the combined study of Logic and Linguistics goes back a long way, at least to the work of the scholastic philosophers in the Middle Ages. At the beginning of this century, the subject was revitalized through the pioneering efforts of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Polish philosophical logicians such as Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. Around 1970, the landmark achievements of Richard Montague established a junction between state-of-the-art mathematical logic and generative linguistic theory. Over the subsequent decades, this enterprise of Montague Grammar has flourished and diversified into a number of research programs with empirical and theoretical substance.
This appears to be the first Handbook to bring logic-language interface to the fore. Both aspects of the interaction between logic and language are demonstrated in the book i.e. firstly, how logical systems are designed and modified in response to linguistic needs and secondly, how mathematical theory arises in this process and how it affects subsequent linguistic theory.
The Handbook presents concise, impartial accounts of the topics covered. Where possible, an author and a commentator have cooperated to ensure the proper breadth and technical content of the papers.
The Handbook is self-contained, and individual articles are of the highest quality.
Johan van Benthem is Professor of Logic at the University of Amsterdam (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science) as well as at Stanford University (Bonsall visiting chair, Department of Philosophy). His research interests include modal and dynamic logic, type-theoretic semantics, and proof-theoretic grammars. Address: Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Amsterdam, Plantage Muidergracht 24, 1018 TV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: johan@fwi.uva.nl, johan@csli.stanford.edu
Alice ter Meulen is Professor of Philosophy and of Linguistics at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research interest is in the interface of logic, language and metaphysics, and has been concerned with mass and amount terms in Montague grammar, and the semantics of tense and aspect in a dynamic system and its interaction with pronominal reference.
Address: Indiana University, Department of Philosophy, Sycamore Hall 026, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
E-mail: atm@phil.indiana.edu
