On Language Adequacy

• Authors: Urszula Wybraniec-Skardowska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper concentrates on the problem of adequate reflection of fragments of reality via expressions of language and inter-subjective knowledge about these fragments, called here, in brief, language adequacy. This problem is formulated in several aspects, the most general one being: the compatibility of the language syntax with its bi-level semantics: intensional and extensional. In this paper, various aspects of language adequacy find their logical explication on the ground of the formal-logical theory of syntax T of any categorial language L generated by the so-called classical categorial grammar, and also on the ground of its extension to the bi-level, intensional and ex- tensional semantic-pragmatic theory ST for L. In T, according to the token- type distinction of Ch. S. Peirce, L is characterized first as a language of wellformed expression-tokens (wfe-tokens) - material, concrete objects - and then as a language of wfe-types - abstract objects, classes of wfe-tokens. In ST the semantic-pragmatic notions of meaning and interpretation for wfe-types of L of intensional semantics and the notion of denotation of extensional seman- tics for wfe-types and constituents of knowledge are formalized. These notions allow formulating a postulate (an axiom of categorial adequacy) from which follow all the most important conditions of the language adequacy, including the above, and a structural one connected with three principles of compositionality.

Keywords

EN

token-type distinction; categorial grammar; intensional semantics; meaning; interpretation; constituent of knowledge; extensional semantics; referring; ontological object; denotation; categorization; compatibility of syntax and semantics; algebraic models; truth; compositionality; communication

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 257-292

Dates

published

2015-03-01

online

2015-04-10

Contributors

author

Urszula Wybraniec-Skardowska

• Opole University

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/slgr-2015-0013