Dialogue from Different Worlds: A Multi-World Approach to the Formal Semantics of Natural Language

Abstract

The article considers the applicability of multi-world models in formal semantics, which is, according to the author, the key problem left unresolved in the Montague grammar. Each participant of language communication uses their own ideas about the world, with the “interpretive functions” being very different between individuals. The article proposes a new approach to formal semantics that does not refer to a unique and common to both sides of communication possible world, but, instead, takes into account the difference between the respective possible worlds on each side of the communication. In this way, the approach previously proposed (by B. Lourié and O. Mitrenina) for semantics of the indirect meanings in the natural language (based on a kind of multi-world semantics, where the propositions/sentences containing indirect meanings are considered as the interworld ones) is to be generalized to formal semantics of the direct meanings as well. The conclusion is substantiated that the interaction between the possible worlds of the speaker and the recipient occurs in the same way as we suggested earlier for the perception of indirect meanings in natural language, namely, using interworld propositions.