Cover not available
Part of
History of Linguistics 2011: Selected Papers from the 12th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XII), Saint Petersburg, 28 August - 2 September 2011
Edited by Vadim Kasevich, Yuri A. Kleiner and Patrick Sériot
[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 123] 2014
► pp. 137–144

Looking for a semantic theory

The path taken by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1931–1960)

ORCID logo | Laboratoire d’Histoire des Théories Linguistiques CNRS | Université Paris Diderot | Sorbonne Paris Cité
In the early 1930s, the Polish philosopher and logician Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890–1963) proposed a new formal approach to natural language which, unlike Chomsky’s, was based on a joint calculus of the grammaticality and meaning of sentences. This methodological choice, which resulted from Ajdukiewicz’s reflections on the nature of language, led him to consider different conceptions of meaning implementable in a syntactical algorithm. The aim of this paper is to retrace the various solutions provided by Ajdukiewicz to meet this challenge that will continue to be a real issue for future categorial grammars.
Published online: 29 August 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sihols.123.12god
References (20)
References
Ajdukiewicz, Kazimierz. 1931. “On the Meaning of Expressions”. Giedymin 1978, 1–34.Google Scholar
. 1931. 1934a. “Language and Meaning”. Giedymin 1978, 35–66.Google Scholar
. 1931. 1934b. “The World-Picture and the Conceptual Apparatus”. Giedymin 1978, 67–89.Google Scholar
. 1931. 1935a. “On the Problem of Universals” Giedymin 1978, 95–110.Google Scholar
. 1931. 1935b. “The Scientific World-Perspective”. Giedymin 1978, 111–117.Google Scholar
. 1931. 1935c. “Die syntaktische Konnexität”. Studia Philosophica I, 1–27. (English translation in Giedymin 1978, 118–139).Google Scholar
. 1931. 1960. “Syntactical Connexions between Constituents of Declarative Sentences”. Giedymin 1978, 269–281.Google Scholar
Bar-Hillel, Yehoshua. 1953. “A quasi-arithmetical Notation for Syntactic Description”. Language 29/1, 47–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1957. “Husserl’s Conception of a Purely Logical Grammar”. Aspects of Language, ed. by Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, 89–97. Amsterdam: The Magnes Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, Robert. 1994. Making it Explicit. Cambridge & London: Havard University Press.Google Scholar
Frege, Gottlob. 1892. “Sinn und Bedeutung”. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 100, 25–50.Google Scholar
Giedymin, Jerzy, ed. 1978. The Scientific World-Perspective and other Essays 1931–1963. 
Dordrecht & Boston: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Godart-Wendling, Béatrice. 1998. “Carnap et Ajdukiewicz: deux conceptions mathématisées de la syntaxe”. Le formalisme en question. Le tournant des années 30, ed. by Frédéric Nef & Denis Vernant, 303–316. Paris: Vrin.Google Scholar
, ed. 2002. Les grammaires catégorielles . Langages 148.Google Scholar
Husserl, Edmund. 1901. Logische Untersuchungen. Halle: Max Niemeyer. (2nd ed. 1913)Google Scholar
Lambek, Jim. 1958. “The Mathematics of Sentence Structure”. The American Mathematical Monthly 65/3, 154–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1961. “On the Calculs of Syntactic Types”. Structure of Language and its Mathematical Aspects, ed. by Roman Jakobson, 166–178. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montague, Richard. 1970. “English as a Formal Language”. Formal Philosophy. Selected Papers of Richard Montague, ed. by Richmond H. Thomason, 188–221. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Simons, Peter M. 1995. “Meaning and Language”. The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, ed. by Barry Smith & David Woodruff Smith, 106–137. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. “Categories, Construction and Congruence: Husserl’s Tactics of Meaning”. Grammar in Early Twentieth-Century Philosophy, ed. by Richard Gaskin, 54–73. 
London: Routledge.Google Scholar