Logicality in Natural Language

Gil Sagi (University of Haifa)

Is there a relation of logical consequence in natural language? Logicality, in the philosophical literature, has been conceived of as a restrictive phenomenon that is at odds with the unbridled richness and complexity of natural language. This article claims that there is a relation of logical consequence in natural language, and moreover, that it is the subject matter of the bulk of current theories of formal semantics. I employ the framework of semantic constraints (Sagi, 2014), which generalises the Tarskian definition of logical consequence. I apply the widely accepted criterion of invariance under isomorphisms (Sher, 1996) generalised to the framework of semantic constraints (Sagi, 2022), as well as a theory of Glanzberg (2014) to delineate the relation of logical consequence in natural language.

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