Situation theorySituation theory is a mathematical and logical framework for modelling information, partial states of affairs and their structure. It was introduced in the early 1980s as the formal background for situation semantics developed by Jon Barwise and John Perry, and has since been elaborated by authors such as Keith Devlin, Jeremy Seligman and Lawrence S. Moss into a general theory of information and information flow.
Formal semantics (natural language)Formal semantics is the scientific study of linguistic meaning through formal tools from logic and mathematics. It is an interdisciplinary field, sometimes regarded as a subfield of both linguistics and philosophy of language. Formal semanticists rely on diverse methods to analyze natural language. Many examine the meaning of a sentence by studying the circumstances in which it would be true.
Possible worldA possible world is a complete and consistent way the world is or could have been. Possible worlds are widely used as a formal device in logic, philosophy, and linguistics in order to provide a semantics for intensional and modal logic.
Jon BarwiseKenneth Jon Barwise (; June 29, 1942 – March 5, 2000) was an American mathematician, philosopher, and logician who proposed some fundamental revisions to the way that logic is understood and used. Education and careerHe was born in Independence, Missouri, to Kenneth T. and Evelyn Barwise. A student of Solomon Feferman at Stanford University, Barwise began his research working in infinitary logic.
John Perry (philosopher)John Richard Perry (born January 16, 1943) is an American philosopher who is professor emeritus at Stanford University and the University of California, Riverside. He has made significant contributions to philosophy in the fields of philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He is known primarily for his work on situation semantics (together with Jon Barwise), reflexivity, indexicality, personal identity, and self-knowledge.
Donald Davidson (philosopher)Donald Herbert Davidson (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley (1981–2003), having previously held teaching appointments at Stanford University, Rockefeller University, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago. Davidson was known for his charismatic personality and difficult writing style, as well as the systematic nature of his philosophy.
Angelika KratzerAngelika Kratzer is a professor emerita of linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. BiographyShe was born in Germany, and received her PhD from the University of Konstanz in 1979, with a dissertation entitled Semantik der Rede. She is an influential and widely cited semanticist whose expertise includes modals, conditionals, situation semantics, and a range of topics relating to the syntax–semantics interface.
Head-driven phrase structure grammarHead-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) is a highly lexicalized, constraint-based grammar developed by Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag. It is a type of phrase structure grammar, as opposed to a dependency grammar, and it is the immediate successor to generalized phrase structure grammar. HPSG draws from other fields such as computer science (data type theory and knowledge representation) and uses Ferdinand de Saussure's notion of the sign.
Peter AczelPeter Henry George Aczel (; 31 October 1941 – 1 August 2023) was a British mathematician, logician and Emeritus joint Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the School of Mathematics at the University of Manchester. He is known for his work in non-well-founded set theory, constructive set theory, and Frege structures.Minimal recursion semanticsMinimal recursion semantics (MRS) is a framework for computational semantics. It can be implemented in typed feature structure formalisms such as head-driven phrase structure grammar and lexical functional grammar. It is suitable for computational language parsing and natural language generation. MRS enables a simple formulation of the grammatical constraints on lexical and phrasal semantics, including the principles of semantic composition.Donkey sentenceIn semantics, a donkey sentence is a sentence containing a pronoun which is semantically bound but syntactically free. They are a classic puzzle in formal semantics and philosophy of language because they are fully grammatical and yet defy straightforward attempts to generate their formal language equivalents.Propositional attitudeA propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent or organism toward a proposition. In philosophy, propositional attitudes can be considered to be neurally realized, causally efficacious, content-bearing internal states (personal principles/values). Linguistically, propositional attitudes are denoted by a verb (e.g. believed) governing an embedded "that" clause, for example, 'Sally believed that she had won'.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.