Quantifiers in Language and Logic [Hardcover]

Quantification is a topic which brings together linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Quantifiers are the essential tools with which, in language or logic, we refer to quantity of things or amount of stuff. In English they include such expressions asno,some,all,both, andmany. Peters and Westerstahl present the definitive interdisciplinary exploration of how they work--their syntax, semantics, and inferential role.

Quantification
I. The Logical Conception of Quantifiers and Quantification
1. A Brief History of Quantification
2. The Emergernce of Generalized Quanitifiers in Modern Logic
II. Quantifiers of Natural Language
3. Type [1] Quantifiers of Natural Language
4. Type [1, 1] Quantifiers of Natural Language
5. Monotone Quantifiers
6. Symmetry and Other Relational Properties of Type [1, 1] Quantifiers
7. Possessive Quantifiers
8. Exceptive Quantifiers
9. Which Quantifiers are Logical?
10. Some Polyadic Quantifiers of Natural Language
III. Beginnings of a Theory of Expressiveness, Translation, and Formalization
11. The Concept of Expressivity
12. Expressibility, Definability, Compositionality
IV. Logical Results of Expressibility with Linguistic Applications
13. Definability and Undefinability in Logical Languages: Tools for the Monadic Case
14. Applications to Monadic Definability
15. EF-tools for Polyadic Quantifiers

This is a high-quality, informative, and authoritative study, offering a clear overview of the denotational semantics of natural language quantifiers, some new results, and a first frontal assault on analyzing the expressive power of natural languages. A substantial, interesting, challenging work. --Edward Keenan, UCLA

This book gives a comprehensive account of quantifiers in both natural and formal languages, drawing on both linguistics and model theory. It crl“ž