Formal semantics studies the denotations of natural language expressions. High-level concerns include compositionality, reference, and the nature of meaning. Key topic areas include scope 展开

Truth conditions
The fundamental question of formal semantics is what you know when you know how to interpret expressions of a language. A common assumption is … 展开

Scope
Scope can be thought of as the semantic order of operations. For instance, in the sentence "Paulina doesn't drink beer but she does drink wine," the proposition that Paulina drinks beer occurs within the scope of 展开

Formal semantics emerged as a major area of research in the early 1970s, with the pioneering work of the philosopher and logician Richard Montague. Montague proposed a formal system now known as Montague grammar which consisted of a novel 展开

• Alternative semantics
• Barbara Partee
• Compositionality
• Computational semantics 展开

• Max Cresswell (2006). "Formal semantics". In Michael Devitt, Richard Hanley (ed.). The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of language. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-23142-4. A very accessible overview of the main ideas in the field. 展开