•  231
    Coreference
    In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Pergamon. pp. 769. 1993.
    In mathematical languages and in predicate logic coreferential terms can be interchanged in any sentence without altering the truth value of that sentence. Replacing 3 + 5 by 12 − 4 in any formula of arithmetic will never lead from truth to falsity or from falsity to truth. But natural languages are different in this respect. While in some contexts it is always allowed to interchange coreferential terms, other contexts do not admit this. An example of the first sort of context is likes bananas: …Read more
  •  113
    A relational formulation of the theory of types
    Linguistics and Philosophy 12 (3). 1989.
    This paper developes a relational---as opposed to a functional---theory of types. The theory is based on Hilbert and Bernays' eta operator plus the identity symbol, from which Church's lambda and the other usual operators are then defined. The logic is intended for use in the semantics of natural language.
  •  103
    Program semantics and classical logic
    In CLAUS Report Nr 86, University of the Saarland. pp. 1-27. 1997).
    In the tradition of Denotational Semantics one usually lets program constructs take their denotations in reflexive domains, i.e. in domains where self-application is possible. For the bulk of programming constructs, however, working with reflexive domains is an unnecessary complication. In this paper we shall use the domains of ordinary classical type logic to provide the semantics of a simple programming language containing choice and recursion. We prove that the rule of {\em Scott Induction\/}…Read more
  •  85
    Propositional Attitudes
    In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Pergamon. 1993.
    Verbs such as know, believe, hope, fear, regret and desire are commonly taken to express an attitude that one may bear towards a proposition and are therefore called verbs of propositional attitude. Thus in (1) below the agent Cathy is reported to have a certain attitude
  •  78
    This paper shows how the dynamic interpretation of natural language introduced in work by Hans Kamp and Irene Heim can be modeled in classical type logic. This provides a synthesis between Richard Montague's theory of natural language semantics and the work by Kamp and Heim.
  •  73
    Hyperfine-grained meanings in classical logic
    Logique Et Analyse 133 159-176. 1991.
    This paper develops a semantics for a fragment of English that is based on the idea of `impossible possible worlds'. This idea has earlier been formulated by authors such as Montague, Cresswell, Hintikka, and Rantala, but the present set-up shows how it can be formalized in a completely unproblematic logic---the ordinary classical theory of types. The theory is put to use in an account of propositional attitudes that is `hyperfine-grained', i.e. that does not suffer from the well-known problems …Read more
  •  67
    Perception Verbs
    In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Pergamon. pp. 6--2999. 1993.
    The semantics of a sentence containing a perception verb such as see or hear depends to a high degree on the exact syntactic form of the perception verb’s complement. Let us compare sentence (1), where the complement is tenseless, with (2), where the complement is a tensed clause
  •  66
    Meaning and Partiality
    CSLI Publications. 1995.
    This book radically simplifies Montague Semantics and generalizes the theory by basing it on a partial higher order logic. The resulting theory is a synthesis of Montague Semantics and Situation Semantics. In the late sixties Richard Montague developed the revolutionary idea that we can understand the concept of meaning in ordinary languages much in the same way as we understand the semantics of logical languages. Unfortunately, however, he formalized his idea in an unnecessarily complex way - t…Read more
  •  56
    Perception Verbs
    In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Pergamon. pp. 6--2999. 1993.
    The semantics of a sentence containing a perception verb such as see or hear depends to a high degree on the exact syntactic form of the perception verb’s complement. Let us compare sentence (1), where the complement is tenseless, with (2), where the complement is a tensed clause
  •  53
    Interpolation Methods for Dunn Logics and Their Extensions
    Studia Logica 105 (6): 1319-1347. 2017.
    The semantic valuations of classical logic, strong Kleene logic, the logic of paradox and the logic of first-degree entailment, all respect the Dunn conditions: we call them Dunn logics. In this paper, we study the interpolation properties of the Dunn logics and extensions of these logics to more expressive languages. We do so by relying on the \ calculus, a signed tableau calculus whose rules mirror the Dunn conditions syntactically and which characterizes the Dunn logics in a uniform way. In t…Read more
  •  48
    The dynamics of discourse situations (extended abstract)
    with Massimo Poesio
    In Paul Dekker, Martin Stokhof & Yde Venema (eds.), Proceedings of the Eleventh Amsterdam Colloquium, University of Amsterdam. pp. 247-252. 1997.
    The effects of utterances such as cue phrases, keep-turn markers, and grounding signals cannot be characterized as changes to a shared record of the propositions under discussed: the simplest (and arguably most natural) way of characterizing the meaning of these utterances is in terms of a theory in which the conversational score is seen as a record of the discourse situation, or at least of the speech acts that have been performed. The problem then becomes to explain how discourse entities are …Read more
  •  36
    Review of 'Exploring Logical Dynamics' by Johan van Benthem, 1998 (review)
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 90 (1): 84-86. 1998.
    Veel Nederlandse woorden (dans, zet, oordeel, assertie, ...) duiden zowel een handeling aan als het resultaat van die handeling. Het fenomeen doet zich in vrijwel alle talen voor en het lijkt erop dat het menselijke cognitieve apparaat er niet zoveel moeite mee heeft te wisselen tussen een statisch perspectief dat resultaten ziet en een dynamisch perspectief dat vooral gericht is op de processen die tot die resultaten geleid hebben. De filosofie heeft meer moeite met het wisselen tussen een stat…Read more
  •  34
    Partial Information
    In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Pergamon. pp. 6--2952. 1993.
    the world of phenomena is immensely large this means we can perceive only part of the world. We see, feel and hear parts of reality, not the whole of it, and it seems that a sentence containing a verb of perception like 'John sees a house burn' is most naturally treated as saying that the subject sees an incomplete world in which the embedded sentence is true (see Barwise (1981) for this analysis). But if we want to analyse perception verbs thus, we must introduce some form of incompleteness int…Read more
  •  21
    16TaP: A Toy Tableau Theorem Prover for 16-Valued Trilattice Logics
    A Programming Road to Logic, Maths, Language, and Philosophy : A Tribute to Jan van Eijck on the Occasion of His Retirement. 2017.
    A short description of a toy theorem prover for 16-valued trilattice logics. Written for the occasion of my friend's Jan van Eijck's retirement. With a link to a swish interface to the prolog prover.
  •  18
    Partial Information
    In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Pergamon. pp. 6--2952. 1993.
  •  8
    Computing Meaning (edited book)
    with Harry Bunt
    Kluwer. 1999.
    This book provides an in-depth view of the current issues, problems and approaches in the computation of meaning as expressed in language. Aimed at linguists, computer scientists, and logicians with an interest in the computation of meaning, this book focuses on two main topics in recent research in computational semantics. The first topic is the definition and use of underspecified semantic representations, i.e. formal structures that represent part of the meaning of a linguistic object while l…Read more
  •  7
    Games, Logic, and Constructive Sets (edited book)
    with Grigori Mints
    Center for the Study of Language and Inf. 2003.
    Mathematical game theory has been embraced by a variety of scholars: social scientists, biologists, linguists, and now, increasingly, logicians. This volume illustrates the recent advances of game theory in the field. Logicians benefit from things like game theory's ability to explain informational independence between connectives; meanwhile, game theorists have even begun to benefit from logical epistemic analyses of game states. In concert with such pioneering work, this volume also present su…Read more
  • CLAUS Report Nr 86 (edited book)
    University of the Saarland. 1997).
  • Dynamics
    In J. F. A. K. Van Benthem, Johan van Benthem & Alice G. B. Ter Meulen (eds.), Handbook of Logic and Language, Elsevier. pp. 587-648. 1997.
  • Interfaces: Explorations in Logic, Language and Computation (edited book)
    with T. Icard
    Springer Berlin. 2010.
    The European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI) takes place every year, each time at a different location in Europe. With its focus on the large interdisciplinary area where linguistics, logic and computation converge, it has become very popular since it started in 1989, attracting large crowds of students. ESSLLI is where everyone in the field meets, teaches, takes courses, gives talks, dances all night, and generally has a good time. One of the enjoyable features of the …Read more
  • Meaning and Partiality
    Dissertation, University of Amsterdam. 1989.