Richard Montague

1.

• R. MONTAGUE

2.

RICHARD MONTAGUE WAS A MATHEMATICAL LOGICIAN WHO HAD
SPECIALIZED IN SET THEORY AND MODAL LOGIC. HIS VIEWS ON NATURAL
LANGUAGE MUST BE UNDERSTOOD WITH HIS MATHEMATICAL
BACKGROUND IN MIND. MONTAGUE HELD THE VIEW THAT NATURAL
LANGUAGE WAS A FORMAL LANGUAGE VERY MUCH IN THE SAME SENSE
AS PREDICATE LOGIC WAS A FORMAL LANGUAGE. AS SUCH, IN
MONTAGUE’S VIEW, THE STUDY OF NATURAL LANGUAGE BELONGED TO
MATHEMATICS, AND NOT TO PSYCHOLOGY (THOMASON 1974, 2).

3.

MONTAGUE INTRODUCED HIS THEORY OF FORMAL SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS AS
APPLIED TO BOTH FORMAL AND NATURAL LANGUAGE. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR IS
SIGNIFICANT BECAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT APPLYING FORMAL SEMANTICS
TO NATURAL LANGUAGE. LOGICIANS PRIOR TO MONTAGUE REGARDED NATURAL
LANGUAGE AS TOO AMBIGUOUS AND UNSTRUCTURED FOR FORMAL LOGICAL
ANALYSIS WHILE LINGUISTS FELT THAT FORMAL LANGUAGES WERE UNABLE TO
CAPTURE THE STRUCTURES OF NATURAL LANGUAGES. MONTAGUE MORE EXPLICITLY
ARGUES FOR THE SIMILARITIES OF NATURAL AND FORMAL LANGUAGE IN ENGLISH AS
A FORMAL LANGUAGE (1970) WHERE HE WRITES “I REJECT THE CONTENTION THAT
AN IMPORTANT THEORETICAL DIFFERENCE EXISTS BETWEEN FORMAL AND NATURAL
LANGUAGES.”

4.

• THE GREATEST FOUNDATIONAL FIGURE FOR FORMAL SEMANTICS IS GOTTOLOB FREGE
(1848 - 1925). HIS CRUCIAL IDEAS INCLUDE THE IDEA

5.

6.

SEMANTICS
branch of linguistics that studies meanings in sentence.
Lexical
Semantics
studies meaning properties of
individual words (lexical
items).
Formal
semantics
is one approach to the
semantics of syntax. It has
much in common with
semantics in logic.
Cognitive
semantics
holds that language is
part of a more general
human cognitive ability,
and can therefore only
describe the world as
people conceive of it..

7.

FORMAL SEMATICS
LINGUISTICS
LOGIS
PHILOSOPHY

8.

9.

10.

METHODS OF STRUCTURAL ANALYSES