Japanese and Logic

一种被广泛接受的观点认为，标准逻辑语言的任何形式语义学都不能为自然语言提供充分的意义理论。然而，自然语言有很多方面可以用标准的逻辑机制来描述。我们的研究旨在识别日语中可以由谓词逻辑的标准语义处理的方面，并通过一些设备来丰富自然语言的语义描述的标准机制。我们提出了一种形式语言，它对应于一个日语片段，其中各种复杂的非短语可以自由地构建。在我们的研究报告中，可以看到对语言及其语义的描述，以及对方法论的一些哲学讨论。我们的方法有以下特点：1。如果在标准一阶谓词逻辑中加入各种限制量化的手段，就可以系统地提供日语中许多复杂名词短语的语义。我们几乎可以直接给一个日语句子指定一个真值条件。我们的语义学尊重日语句子的词序。我们的方法可以为研究各种上下文因素在确定自然语言表达意义方面的贡献提供一个形式化框架。

A widely accepted opinion has it that any formal semantics for the standard language of logic could not supply an adequate theory of meaning for a natural language. However, a natural language has various aspects which can be profitably described by the standard logical machinery. Our research aimed at identifying such aspects of Japanese that can be handled by the standard semantics for predicate logic, and making a progress towards enriching the standard machinery by some devices for the semantic description of a natural language. We have presented a formal language that corresponds to a Japanese fragment in which various complex non phrases can be freely constructed. In the report of our research, one can find the description of the language and its semantics as well as some philosophical discussion about the methodology.Our method has the following features:1. If we add a device for various sorts of restricted quantification to the standard first-order predicate logic, we can supply the semantics for many complex noun phrases of Japanese in a systematic way.2. We can assign a truth condition almost directly to a Japanese sentence. Our semantics respects the word order of a Japanese sentence.3. Our method can provide a formal framework for studying the contributions of various contextual factors in determining the meaning of natural language expressions.