Abstract

This thesis is a contribution to the study of the semantic properties of natural languages using formal techniques borrowed from mathematical logic. A semantic theory for English is developed using some novel methods. The theory is applied to monadic and relational atomic sentences, truth-functional sentence modification, quantification of all finite orders, predicative and non-predicative adjectival modification, infinitives, complex predicates formed by recursion with 'and' and 'not', sentence nominalization, predicates appearing in subject position, names of fictions, alethic modal operators, and various kinds of opacity-producing verbs. The theory is compared with the standard model theory for first and higher order quantification, Montague intensional semantics, and Church's logics of sense and denotation