Skip to main content

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science ((BSPS,volume 177))

  • 145 Accesses

Abstract

The semantic treatment of noun phrases and determiners in Montague (1973) presupposes the notion of “generalized quantifiers” proposed in Mostowski (1957). The importance of this notion for natural language has been brought out explicitly in Barwise and Cooper (1981) and Keenan and Stavi (1986). The basic idea is to let a noun phrase DA (all men, some women, most students, etc.) to denote a set of sets of individuals, that is to say, the set of the denotations of the verb phrases B for which (DA)B holds.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Barwise, J. and Cooper, R., 1981, ‘Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language’, Linguistics and Philosophy 4, 159–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Benthem, J., 1984, ‘Foundations of Conditional Logic’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 13, 303–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Benthem, J., 1986, Essays on Logical Semantics; D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burgess, J. P., 1981, ‘Quick Completeness Proofs for some Logics of Conditionals’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 22, 71–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keenan, E. L. and Stavi, J., 1986, ‘A Semantic Characterization of Natural Language Determiners’, Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 253–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lapierre, S., 1991, ‘Conditionals and Quantifiers’, in Jaap van der Does and Jan van Eijck (eds.), Generalized Quantifiers and Applications, Dutch Network for Language, Logic and Information, Amsterdam, pp. 155–174. To appear in Jaap van der Does and Jan van Eijck (eds.), Quantifiers, Logic and Language, CSLI Lectures Notes, Stanford, California, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D. K., 1973, Counterfactuals, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindström, P., 1966, ‘First-order Predicate Logic with Generalized Quantifiers’, Theoria 32, 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montague, R., 1973, ‘The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English’, in J. Hintikka, J. Moravcisk, and P. Suppes (eds.), Approaches to Natural Language: Proceedings of the 1970 Stanford Workshop on Grammar and Semantics, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, pp. 221–242.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mostowski, A., 1957, ‘On a Generalization of Quantifiers’, Fundamenta Mathematicae 44, 12–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westerståhl, D., 1989, ‘Quantifiers in Formal and Natural Languages’, in D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, volume IV, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, pp. 1–131.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lapierre, S. (1995). Generalized Quantifiers and Inferences. In: Marion, M., Cohen, R.S. (eds) Québec Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 177. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1575-6_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1575-6_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7204-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-1575-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics