Abstract
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in categorial grammar as a framework for formulating empirical theories about natural language. This conference bears witness to that revival of interest. How well does this framework fare when used in this way? And how well do particular theories in what we might call the family of categorial theories fare when they are put up against the test of natural language description and explanation? I say ‘family’ of theories, for there have been a number of different developments, all of which take off from the fundamental idea of a categorial grammar as it was first introduced by Ajdukiewicz and later modified and studied by Bar-Hillel, Curry, and Lambek. In this paper I would like to discuss these questions, considering a number of different hypotheses that have been put forward within the broad framework that we may call ‘extended categorial grammar’ and making a few comparisons with other theories. In my remarks, I will take as a general framework the program and set of assumptions that have been called ‘extended Montague grammar’ and in particular a slightly modified version of Montague’s ‘Universal Grammar’ (UG: Paper 7 in Montague, 1974). From this point of view, the syntax of a language is looked at as a kind of algebra. Then, the empirical problem of categorial grammar can be seen as part of a general program that tries to answer these questions:
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(A)
What is the set of primitive and derived categories that we need to describe and explain natural languages in their syntax and semantics (and phonology, etc.)?
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(B)
What are the operations that we need to describe and explain natural languages (in the syntax, semantics, phonology, morphology, etc.)?
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(C)
What are the relations that we need in order to hook up with each other the various categories and operations mentioned or alluded to in (A) and (B)?
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Bach, E. (1988). Categorial Grammars as Theories of Language. In: Oehrle, R.T., Bach, E., Wheeler, D. (eds) Categorial Grammars and Natural Language Structures. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-6878-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-6878-4_2
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