Redefining logical constants as inference markers
-
María José Frápolli,
and
Stavros Assimakopoulos,
Abstract
There is currently no universally accepted general definition of logical constanthood. With a view to addressing this issue, we follow a pragmatist rationale, according to which, some notion can be identified as a logical constant by considering the way in which it is used in our everyday reasoning practices, and argue that a logical constant has to be seen as encoding some kind of dynamic meaning, which marks the presence of an inferential transition among propositional contents. We then put forth a characterisation of logical constants that takes into account their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic roles. What follows from our proposal is that logical constanthood can be best understood as a functional property that is satisfied only by certain uses of the relevant notions.
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction: Special issue on cognitive pragmatics and its interfaces in linguistics
- Pragmatic demands on the form of grammar: Theoretical and methodological limitations on the grammatical code
- Language as tools for interaction: Grammar and the dynamics of ellipsis resolution
- Differential case-marking: Syntactic descriptions and pragmatic explanations
- Word meaning and concept expressed
- Redefining logical constants as inference markers
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction: Special issue on cognitive pragmatics and its interfaces in linguistics
- Pragmatic demands on the form of grammar: Theoretical and methodological limitations on the grammatical code
- Language as tools for interaction: Grammar and the dynamics of ellipsis resolution
- Differential case-marking: Syntactic descriptions and pragmatic explanations
- Word meaning and concept expressed
- Redefining logical constants as inference markers
- The relevance of tones: Prosodic meanings in utterance interpretation and in relevance theory
- A pragmatic perspective on the phonological values of utterance-final boundary tones in East Norwegian intonation
