The primary units of meaning in the use and comprehension of language are speech acts of the type called illocutionary acts. In Foundations of lllocutionary Logic John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken presented the first formalized logic of a general theory of speech acts. In Meaning and Speech Acts Daniel Vanderveken develops the logic of speech acts and the logic of propositions to construct a general semantic theory of natural languages. Given the logical form of illocutionary acts, the primary goals of semantics are to formulate recursive definitions of success, satisfaction, and truth. This new theoretical approach unifies truth conditional semantics as developed in the tradition of Frege, Tarski, and Montague, and speech act theory as developed by Austin and Searle. It enables semantics to interpret sentences of all types expressing speech acts with any possible illocutionary force and to analyze practical as well as theoretical inferences.
Volume I, Principles of Language Use, explains the general principles that connect meaning, reason, thought, and speech acts in the semantic structure of language. It presupposes no detailed knowledge of logical formalism, and will be accessible to a large readership of students and scholars from philosophy, linguistics, cognitive psychology, and computer science.
Volume II, Formal Semantics of Success and Satisfaction, uses the resources of philosophical and mathematical logics to develop a formalization of the laws of semantic theory advanced in Volume I. It will be of interest to theoretical linguists and those involved in the logic of meaning and understanding or artificial intelligence.
Acknowledgments page ix
INTRODUCTION i
I THE PRIMARY UNITS OF MEANING 7
II ILLOCUTIONARILY SIGNIFICANT SENTENCE TYPES 13
III INTENSIONAL LOGIC AND ILLO CUTION ARY LOGIC 25
I MAIN FEATURES OF GENERAL SEMANTICS II PHILOSOPHICAL INTEREST 53
III CRITERIA OF ADEQUACY 6l IV THE PLACE OF GENERAL SEMANTICS IN SEMIOTICS 65
I HISTORICAL REMARKS 76
II PROPOSITIONS, SENTENCES, AND TRUTH VALUES 78 III PROPOSITIONS AND ILLO CUTI ON ARY ACTS 8l
IV THE LAW OF PROPOSITIONAL IDENTITY 84
V LOGICAL OPERATIONS ON PROPOSITIONS 08
I ANALYSIS OF THE NOTION OF ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE 103
II RECURSIVE DEFINITION OF THE SET OF ALL ILLOCUTIONARY FORCES 125
III THE SEMANTIC CONCEPTS OF SUCCESS AND SATISFACTION I29
I LAWS FOR ILLOCUTIONARY POINTS AND SENTENTIAL TYPES 139
II LAWS FOR ILLOCUTIONARY FORCES 145 III LAWS OF ENTAILMENT AND ANALYTICITY 152
(with the collaboration of Kenneth MacQueen)
I ENGLISH ASSERTIVES 169
II ENGLISH COMMISSIVES 182
III ENGLISH DIRECTIVES 189
IV ENGLISH DECLARATIVES 198
V ENGLISH EXPRESSIVES 213
CONCLUSION 220
Appendix: LIST OF SYMBOLS 228
Bibliography 232
Index 237
Acknowledgments x
INTRODUCTION
1 EARLIER LOGICS OF SPEECH ACTS
I RESCHER'S LOGIC OF COMMANDS
II THE LOGIC OF QUESTIONS
III CRITICISM OF MONTAGUE GRAMMAR
2 A SIMPLE FORMULATION OF ILLOCUTIONARY LOGIC
I THE IDEAL OBJECT-LANGUAGE
II RULES OF ABBREVIATION
III THE STRUCTURE OF A SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION
IV A COMPLETE AXIOMATIC SYSTEM
3 FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF ILLOCUTIONARY LOGIC
I BASIC LAWS FOR PROPOSITIONS
II BASIC LAWS FOR COMPONENTS OF FORCE
III BASIC LAWS FOR ILLOCUTIONARY FORCES
IV BASIC LAWS FOR SPEECH ACTS
4 THE IDEAL CONCEPTUAL LANGUAGE OF GENERAL SEMANTICS
I VOCABLUARY AND RULES OF FORMATION
II RULES OF ABBREVIATION
III GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRANSLATION
5 THE LOGICAL SEMANTICS OF LANGUAGE
I DEFINITION OF A STANDARD MODEL
II LAWS FOR SENTENCE MEANING
III LAWS OF ENTAILMENT IIo
6 THE AXIOMATIC SYSTEM
I DEFINITION OF A GENERAL MODEL
II AXIOMS AND RULES OF INFERENCE
III THEOREMS
7 RULES OF TRANSLATION
I RELEVANT ENGLISH WORDS AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES
II TIME, MODALITIES, AND ACTION
III ENGLISH ASSERTIVES
IV ENGLISH COMMISSIVES
V ENGLISH DIRECTIVES
VI ENGLISH DECLARATIVES
VII ENGLISH EXPRESSIVES
APPENDIX I
A COMPLETENESS THEOREM FOR ILLOCUTIONARY LOGIC
(with the collaboration of David K. Johnston)
APPENDIX 2
THE GENERAL COMPLETENESS OF THE AXIOMATIC SYSTEM
(with the collaboration of David K. Johnston and Franfois Lepage)
APPENDIX 3
LIST OF SYMBOLS
SMALL LETTERS
CAPITAL LETTERS
GREEK SYMBOLS
MATHEMATICAL SYMBOLS
LOGICAL SYMBOLS
META-LOGICAL SYMBOLS
BILBIOGRAPHY
Index