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CfP special issue on "Logic and Natural Language", Studia Logica, Deadline: 3 September 2010

Call for papers: special Issue of Studia Logica on

                     Logic and Natural Language


Perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of the twentieth century
revolution in mathematical logic is the central role assumed by formal,
rather than natural, languages. For the founding fathers of the new
logic, natural language was a barrier to progress---one to be swept
aside by the new, logically perspicuous syntax of the Predicate
Calculus. This dissociation of formal logic from natural language
was subsequently compounded by the rise of theoretical linguistics,
which---notwithstanding its early stress on the relationship between
grammar formalisms and models of computation---developed in relative
isolation from mathematical logic.  Only towards the end of the
twentieth century did work on the relationship between natural and
formal languages begin to gather pace. Two convergent trends can be
discerned. The first is a growing realization that the characteristics
of natural languages that most clearly differentiate them from formal
languages---oddly restricted expressive power, redundancy, vagueness,
ambiguity---are themselves worthy objects of logical study. The second
is an ever livelier interest among formal linguists in logical aspects
of grammar---a development which is itself a manifestation of the
deepening relationship between logic and the theory of computation.

Today, researchers in Logic, Linguistics, Philosophy and Computer
Science face a constellation of questions on the relationship between
natural language and logic.  What logical resources are required to
articulate formal grammars of various sorts? What formal systems best
account for the logical relations between sentences in natural
language? What light can formalization of natural language shed on the
difficulty of language-processing tasks? How does the treatment of
quantification (time, modality) in natural and formal languages
differ?

Studia Logica invites contributions to a special issue on "Logic and
Natural Language", edited by Nissim Francez (Technion, Haifa) and Ian
Pratt-Hartmann (University of Manchester). It is envisaged that the
issue will comprise papers in two broad areas: (i) the use of logical
techniques in the presentation and analysis of grammar formalisms;
(ii) investigation of the logical characteristics (expressiveness,
complexity, proof-theory) of natural language.  We specifically,
though not exclusively, invite submissions on the following topics:

- Logical analyses of NL syntax and semantics (e.g. model-theoretic
   syntax, type-logical grammars, abstract categorial grammars)
- The connection between NL, substructural logics and higher-order logics
- Type-theory and NL
- Logics for non-indicative sentences (questions, commands, ...)
- Dynamic logics for discourse
- Logics of plurality (plural predication, plural quantification)
- Logics of ambiguity
- Modal, temporal and spatial logics in NL
- Complexity-and proof-theoretic analysis of fragments of NLs
- Logics capturing valid NL arguments ("natural logics"),
- Criticism of traditional mathematical logic based on arguments
   originating from NL
- Modern formalization of Classical and Mediaeval logics.

Submitted papers should not exceed 25 pages (including bibliography),
formatted according to the Studia Logica LaTeX style (for detailed
instructions, see http://www.studialogica.org/), and should be
accompanied by a title page containing the following information:
paper title, authors' names, email address and telephone number of the
contact author, a short abstract and up to five keywords. Authors'
names should not appear on the paper itself.  Only electronic
submissions will be accepted. The authors should send an email with
subject "Studia Logica Special Issue on Logic and Language" to the
issue editors (ipratt@cs.man.ac.uk), with the file of the paper as an
attachment.

Deadline for submission of manuscripts to the issue editors: 3.9.2010.


PDF version of this CfP you may find at
http://www.studialogica.org/CfP-Pratt-Hatmann.pdf