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What is semantics?
Peregrin, Jaroslav
The traditional, Carnap's definition of semantics declares semantics to be the study of the relations between expressions and extralinguistic entities (while syntax is the the study of the relations among expressions and pragmatics is the study of the relations between expressions and their users). The paper argues that this definition is useless and proposes another one: semantics is the study of the 'basic' rules for using expressions (while syntax is the study of which expressions are used and pragmatics is the study of the residual aspects of their use).
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Meaning and Inference
Peregrin, Jaroslav
According to certain semantic theories, the meaning of an expression is, principally, its inferential role. In this paper we first propose an exact definition of the concept of inferential role, and then go on to examine the question whether subscribing to inferentialism necessitates throwing away existing theories of formal semantics, as we know them from logic, or whether these could be somehow accomodated within the inferentialist framework. The conclusion we reach is that it is possible to make an inferentialist sense of even those common semantic theories which are usually considered as incompatible with inferentialism, such as the standard semantics of second-order logic.
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The Logic of Anaphora
Peregrin, Jaroslav
The paper addresses foundational questions concerning the dynamic semantics of natural language based on dynamic logic of the Groenendijko-Stokhofian kind. Discussing a series of model calculi of increasing complecity, it shows in detail how usual semantics of dynamic logic can be seen as emerging from the account for certain inferential patterns of natural language, namely those governing anaphora. In this way, the current 'dynamic turn' of logic is argued to be reasonably seen not as the product of changing the focus of logic from the relation of entailment to "a structure of human cognitive action" (van Benthem), but rather as merely another step in our long-term effort to master more and more inferential patterns.
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Absolute and Relative Concepts in Logic
Peregrin, Jaroslav
We should distinguish two kinds of logical pursuit. The first is the pursuit of the explication of the absolute concepts of truth, proof, consequence etc.; the second is the pursuit of their counterparts which are relativized to a linguistic system. The former leads to the 'logic as a language' notion; the other to the 'logic as a calculus' one. These two pursuits are, of course, not unrelated (the latter may be taken as a way of carrying out the former); however, many logicians appear to simply identify logic with one of them. And while it is feasible to identify logic with the first of them (possibly taking the second as a means of accomplishing it), it is not so feasible to identify it with the second.
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