Language in Action

This monograph began life as a series of papers documenting five years of research into the logical foundations of Categorial Grammar, a grammatical paradigm which has close analogies with Lambda Calculus and Type Theory. The technical theory presented here stems from the interface between Logic and Linguistics and, in particular, the theory of generalized quantification. A categorical framework with lambda calculus-oriented semantics is a convenient vehicle for generalizing semantic insights (obtained in various corners of natural language) into one coherent theory.

The book aims to demonstrate to fellow logicians that the resulting applied lambda calculus has intrinsic logical interest. In the final analysis, the idea is not just to `break the syntactic code' of natural languages but to understand the cognitive functioning of the human mind.

"At present the research programme presented in van Benthem's monograph is intensively developed by logicians, mathematicians, and specialists in computer science and linguistics. Language in Action conveniently reports in detail and in a compact form the results hitherto obtained. Certainly it becomes the standard reference in the area."—From the Logical Point of View