In formal semantics, a

predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...

is quantized if it being true of an entity requires that it is ''not'' true of any proper subparts of that entity. For example, if something is an "apple", then no proper subpart of that thing is an "apple". If something is "water", then many of its subparts will also be "water". Hence, the predicate "apple" is quantized, while "water" is not. Formally, a quantization predicate ''QUA'' can be defined as follows, where

U

is the universe of discourse,

F

is a variable over sets, and

p

is a mereological part

structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such a ...

U

with

<_p

the mereological part-of relation:

(\forall F\subseteq U_p)(QUA(F) \iff (\forall x,y)(F(x)\wedge F(y) \Rightarrow \neg x<_p y))

Quantization was first proposed by

Manfred Krifka Manfred Krifka (born 26 April 1956 in Dachau) is a German linguist. He is the director of the Leibniz Centre for General Linguistics (Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, ZAS) in Berlin, a professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin, ...

as part of his mereological approach to the semantics of nominals. It has since been applied to other phenomena such as

telicity In linguistics, telicity (; ) is the property of a verb or verb phrase that presents an action or event as having a specific endpoint. A verb or verb phrase with this property is said to be ''telic''; if the situation it describes is ''not'' he ...

References

Logic Semantics Grammar {{semantics-stub

See also

References