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Are Logical Languages Compositional?

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Abstract

In this paper I argue that in contrast to natural languages, logical languages typically are not compositional. This does not mean that the meaning of expressions cannot be determined at all using some well-defined set of rules. It only means that the meaning of an expression cannot be determined without looking at its form. If one is serious about the compositionality of a logic, the only possibility I see is to define it via abstraction from a variable free language.

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  1. Fakultät Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft, Universität Bielefeld, Postfach 10 01 31, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany

    Marcus Kracht

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  1. Marcus Kracht
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Correspondence to Marcus Kracht.

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Kracht, M. Are Logical Languages Compositional?. Stud Logica 101, 1319–1340 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-013-9535-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-013-9535-y

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