The Logic of Language

The Logic of Language opens a new perspective on logic. Pieter Seuren argues that the logic of language derives from the lexical meanings of the logical operators. These meanings, however, prove not to be consistent. Seuren solves this problem through an indepth analysis of the functional adequacy of natural predicate logic and standard modern logic for natural linguistic interaction. He then develops a general theory of discourse-bound interpretation, covering discourse incrementation, anaphora, presupposition and topic-comment structure, all of which, the author claims, form the 'cement' of discourse structure.

This is the second of a two-volume foundational study of language, published under the title Language from Within. Pieter Seuren discusses such apparently diverse issues as the ontology underlying the semantics of language, speech act theory, intensionality phenomena, the machinery and ecology of language, sentential and lexical meaning, the natural logic of language and cognition, and the intrinsically context-sensitive nature of language - and shows them to be intimately linked. Throughout his ambitious enterprise, he maintains a constant dialogue with established views, reflecting their development from Ancient Greece to the present. The resulting synthesis concerns central aspects of research and theory in linguistics, philosophy and cognitive science.

Pieter Seuren is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen. He was a lecturer in linguistics first at Cambridge, then Oxford, before moving to the Radboud University in Nijmegen in 1974 as Professor of the Philosophy of Language. Here he remained until his retirement in 1999, having in 1995 changed his appointment to Professor of Theoretical Linguistics. His books include Discourse Semantics (Blackwell 1985), Semantic Syntax (Blackwell 1996) and A View of Language (OUP 2001).