View source for Situation semantics

In [[situation theory]], '''situation semantics''' (pioneered  by [[Jon Barwise]] and [[John Perry (philosopher)|John Perry]] in the early 1980s)<ref>[[Jon Barwise]] and [[John Perry (philosopher)|John Perry]], ''Situations and Attitudes'', 1983. MIT Press, {{ISBN|0-262-02189-7}}.</ref> attempts to provide a solid  theoretical foundation for reasoning about common-sense and real world situations, typically in the context of [[theoretical linguistics]], [[theoretical philosophy]], or applied [[natural language processing]],

==Barwise and Perry==

Situations, unlike worlds, are not complete in the sense that every proposition or its negation holds in a world. According to ''Situations and Attitudes'', meaning is a relation between a discourse  situation, a connective situation and a described situation. The original theory of ''Situations and Attitudes'' soon ran into foundational difficulties. A reformulation based on [[Peter Aczel]]'s [[non-well-founded set theory]]<ref>Barwise, Jon. 1989. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=aX7RKgvpJw8C&q=%22situation+semantics%22 The Situation in Logic].'' CSLI Lecture Notes 17. Center for the Study of Language (CSLI).</ref> was proposed by Barwise before this approach to the subject petered out in the early 1990s.

==HPSG==

Situation semantics is the first semantic theory that was used in [[head-driven phrase structure grammar]] (HPSG).<ref>[[Carl Pollard|Pollard, Carl]] and [[Ivan Sag|Ivan A. Sag]], 1987. ''Information-Based Syntax and Semantics. Vol.&nbsp;1: Fundamentals''. CSLI Lecture Notes&nbsp;13. CSLI, Stanford, CA.</ref>

==Kratzer==

Barwise and Perry's system was a top-down approach which foundered on practical issues which were early identified by [[Angelika Kratzer]] and others. She subsequently developed a considerable body of theory bottom-up by addressing a variety of issues in the areas of [[Context (language use)|context]] dependency in discourse and the [[syntax–semantics interface]].<ref>[http://people.umass.edu/kratzer/ Umass Faculty Member Site with links to corpus]</ref> Because of its practical nature and ongoing development this body of work "with possible situations as parts of [[possible world]]s, now has much more influence than Barwise and Perry’s ideas".<ref>[[Barbara Partee]], "Reflections of Formal Semanticist as of Feb. 2005", p. 20. February 14, 2005.</ref>

==See also==
* {{annotated link|Circumscription (logic)}}
* {{annotated link|Montague grammar}}
* {{annotated link|Semantics}}

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/situations-semantics/ "Situations in Natural Language Semantics"] – [[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]

{{formal semantics}}

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[[Category:Semantics]]


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