Hans Kamp – författare

Preface This book is about semantics and logic. More specifically, it is about the semantics and logic of natural language; and, even more specifically than that, it is about a particular way of dealing with those subjects, known as Discourse Representation Theory, or DRT. DRT is an approach towards natural language semantics which, some thirteen years ago, arose out of attempts to deal with two distinct problems. The first of those was the semantic puzzle that had been brought to contempo­ rary attention by Geach's notorious "donkey sentences" - sentences like If Pedro owns some donkey, he beats it, in which the anaphoric connection we perceive between the indefinite noun phrase some donkey and the pronoun it may seem to conflict with the existential meaning of the word some. The second problem had to do with tense and aspect. Some languages, for instance French and the other Romance languages, have two morphologically distinct past tenses, a simple past (the French Passe Simple) and a continuous past (the French Imparfait). To articulate precisely what the difference between these tenses is has turned out to be surprisingly difficult.

Preface This book is about semantics and logic. More specifically, it is about the semantics and logic of natural language; and, even more specifically than that, it is about a particular way of dealing with those subjects, known as Discourse Representation Theory, or DRT. DRT is an approach towards natural language semantics which, some thirteen years ago, arose out of attempts to deal with two distinct problems. The first of those was the semantic puzzle that had been brought to contempo­ rary attention by Geach's notorious "donkey sentences" - sentences like If Pedro owns some donkey, he beats it, in which the anaphoric connection we perceive between the indefinite noun phrase some donkey and the pronoun it may seem to conflict with the existential meaning of the word some. The second problem had to do with tense and aspect. Some languages, for instance French and the other Romance languages, have two morphologically distinct past tenses, a simple past (the French Passe Simple) and a continuous past (the French Imparfait). To articulate precisely what the difference between these tenses is has turned out to be surprisingly difficult.

This selection of research papers written by Hans Kamp presents the core of his scientific research on natural language semantics and its relation to logic, philosophy and linguistics. Arranged in six sections, the topics range from philosophical reflection on the foundational issues in the ancient Sorites Paradox with a formal account of its solution, to a detailed account of presuppositions in dynamic semantics.Ranking among the philosophers with great and lasting influence on formal semantics, Hans Kamp contributed early foundational research to core theoretical topics like temporal reference and vagueness, then pushed the boundaries of the discipline in new and productive directions. Showing the importance of non-truth-functional aspects of meaning, Discourse Representation Theory proved the value of a dynamic approach to interaction of text and context for our understanding of anaphora, word meaning and context-dependence. This collection shows very clearly how Kamp has forged ground-breaking connections among semantics, computation, and mental representation, challenging the once dominant Fregean anti-psychologism, while demonstrating that the best theoretical research can simultaneously yield important computational applications and novel cognitive insights. Barbara Partee, University of Massachussetts Amherst.Hans Kamp has been rewarded with the Rolf Schock Prize in 2024.