Logic-based interface between semantics and pragmatics: An investigation of the semantics and pragmatics of focus, topic and presupposition in dialogues

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The aim of this project is to contribute to the formal integration of semantics and pragmatics. The two main areas on which we mean to concentrate are (i) the semantics and pragmatics of focus, topic and presupposition; (ii) the semantics and presuppositional relations between distinct utterances [...] and certain rhetorical relations between successive speech acts, in particular the semantic and pragmatic relations between questions and answers. The integration that we are aiming for is one in which logic has a crucial place; and this implies that pragmatic principles will have to be formalized with the same mathematical precision which has become a widely accepted standard within formal semantics. [...] Because of the complexity of natural language it is in practice well-nigh impossible to investigate its logical aspects without a proper semantic foundation. So semantics will of necessity be a central concern of this project also in the "meta-logical" sense that all representations and descriptions of meaning with which we will deal will have to be "logically transparent": for all of them there will have to be a well-defined model theory, which can provide us, along familiar lines, with semantically grounded notions of logical validity.