Abstract
In this paper1 I would like to explore the notion that the kind of logical structure appropriate to the description of a human language, rather than being uniform for all languages, might depend in a typologically significant way on the language being described. I will examine a selection of grammatical phenomena in certain North American languages with a view towards explicating what I believe to be coherent principles that inform the semantic interpretative components of their grammars. Underlying our exploration will be the question: what are the typologically significant aspects of semantic or logical interpretation?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aissen, J. (1989) Agreement Controllers and Tzotzil Comitatives, Language 65, 518–536. Barwise, J. and Cooper, R. (1981) Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language, Linguistics and Philosophy 4, 159–219.
Boas, F. and Deloria, E. C. (1941) Dakota Grammar, National Academy of Sciences Memoirs, 23: 2.
Buechel, E., S. J. (1939) A Grammar of Lakota, Rosebud Educational Society, Saint Francis, S.D.
DeReuse, W. J. (1978) A Grammar of the Lakhota Noun Phrase, M.A. thesis, University of Kansas.
Fontana, J. M. (1989) On the Structure of So-Called “Internally-headed” Relative Clauses, Proceedings of the Penn. Linguistics Colloquium.
Frishberg, N. (1972) Navajo Object Markers and the Great Chain of Being. In J. P. Kimball (ed.), Syntax and Semantics I, Seminar Press, New York.
Goossen, I. W. (1967) Navajo Made Easier, Revised Edition, Northland, Flagstaff.
Hairy Shirt, L., One Star, L., Sr., Douville, V., Stands, C., Sosnowski, S., and Brennan, T., S. J. (1973) Lakota Woonspe Wowapi, North Plains Press, Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Hale, K. (1983) Warlpiri and the Grammar of Non-Configurational Languages, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1, 5–47.
Jackendoff, R. (1983) Semantics and Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Jelinek, E. (1984) Empty Categories, Case, and Configurationality, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 2, 39–76.
Jelinek, E. (1987) Headless Relatives and Pronominal Arguments: A Typological Perspective. In P. Kroeber and R. Moore (eds.), Native American Languages and Grammatical Typology. Papers from a CLS parassession, Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Jelinek, E. (1988) Quantification Without Nouns in Salish, unpublished paper presented at the Symposium on Cross-Linguistic Quantification, LSA Winter Meeting.
Jelinek, E. (1995) Quantification in Straits Salish. In E. Bach, E. Jelinek, A. Kratzer and B. H. Partee (eds.), Quantification in Natural Languages, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 487–540.
Kamp, H. (1981) A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation. In J. A. G. Groenendijk, T. M. V. Janssen, and M. B. J. Stokhof (eds.), Formal Methods in the Study of Language, Mathematical Centre Tracts, Amsterdam, pp. 277–322.
Keenan, E. L. and Faltz, L. M. (1985) Boolean Semantics for Natural Language, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Ladusaw, W. (1988) Group Reference and the Plural Pronoun Construction, Papers on the Plural Pronoun Construction and Comitative Coordination, Syntax Research Center, UC Santa Cruz, pp. 1–7.
Lehmann, C. (1984) Der Relativsatz, Gunter Narr, Tübingen.
McNally, L. (1988) Comitative Coordination in Russian, Papers on the Plural Pronoun Construction and Comitative Coordination, Syntax Research Center, UC Santa Cruz, pp. 9–15.
Montague, R. (1974) Formal Philosophy,Yale University Press, New Haven. Navajo Language Institute (1986) Diné Bizaad Bôhoo’aah,Farmington.
Partee, B. (1979) Constraining Transformational Montague Grammar: A Framework and a Fragment. In S. Davis and M. Mithun (eds.), Linguistics, Philosophy, and Montague Grammar, University of Texas, pp. 51–101.
Partee, B. (1984) Compositionality. In F. Landman and F. Veltman (eds.), Varieties of Formal Semantics, Foris, Dordrecht, pp. 281–311.
Partee, B. (1987) Noun Phrase Interpretation and Type-Shifting Principles. In J. Groenendijk, D. de Jongh, and M. Stokhof (eds.), Studies in Discourse Representation Theory and the Theory of Generalized Quantifiers, Foris, Dordrecht, pp. 115–143.
Platero, P. (1974) The Navajo Relative Clause, International Journal of American Linguistics 40, 202–246.
Perkins, E. T. (1978) The Role of Word Order and Scope in the Interpretation of Navajo Sentences, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson.
Rood, D. S. and Taylor, A. R. (1976) Beginning Lakhota, University of Colorado Lakhota Project, Boulder.
Sasse, H.-J. (1988) Der irokesische Sprachtyp, Zeitschrift fir Sprachwissenschaft 7, 2, 173–213.
Schwartz, L. (1988) Asymmetric Feature Distribution in Pronominal `Coordinations’. In M. Barlow and C. A. Ferguson (eds.), Agreement in Natural Language, CSLI, Stanford.
Talmy, L. (1985) Lexicalization Patterns: Semantic Structure in Lexical Forms. In T. Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description 3, Cambridge University Press.
Williamson, J. S. (1987) An Indefiniteness Restriction for Relative Clauses in Lakhota. In E. J. Reuland and A. G. B. ter Meulen (eds.), The Representation of (In)definiteness, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 168–190.
Willie, M. A. (1989) Why There is Nothing Missing in Navajo Relative Clauses. In
E.-D. Cook and K. D. Rice (eds.), Athapaskan Linguistics,Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin. Young, R. and Morgan, W. (1987) The Navajo Language,Revised Edition, UNM Press, Albuquerque.
Zeevat, H. (1989) A Compositional Approach to Discourse Representation Theory, Linguistics and Philosophy 12, 95–131.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Faltz, L.M. (1995). Towards a Typology of Natural Logic. In: Bach, E., Jelinek, E., Kratzer, A., Partee, B.H. (eds) Quantification in Natural Languages. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 54. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2817-1_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2817-1_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-3129-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2817-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive