Modelling meaning

: a logico-algebraic investigation of hyperintensionality

Abstract

This dissertation studies and contributes to a recent trend of mathematical innovations linked to the hyperintensional revolution in formal semantics. It does so against the backdrop of a methodological pluralism that we defend in the first part of the thesis. We characterise semantics as a model-building activity and piggyback on a general pluralism about scientific models to motivate a metasemantics centered around the study of networks of distinct but complementary semantic models. The precise pluralism we endorse is two-tiered: two semantic models can bifurcate on the granularity at which meanings are modelled − the resolution each models targets − or on the techniques deployed in their respective formal apparatus − on the modelling style used to capture that target. This leads us to organise our metasemantics as a bi-dimensional cartography of semantic models.

We focuses on two-component semantics − which is based on the idea that propositions are characterised both by their truth-conditions and their subject-matter. The second part of dissertation lays out the basic semantic machinery of two-component semantics and and organises its multiple implementations in the context of our two-tier pluralism. In particular, we consider both the American and the Australian plans for paradefinite negation.

The third part explores various ontological modelling of truth-supporting circumstances and of aboutness-supporting topics as well as their semantic upshots. This exploration culminates in the result that particular implementations of two-component semantics lead to truthmaker semantics, a competing hyperintensional framework. This bridge between two-component and truthmaker semantics allows us to further our understanding of the preexisting American-style truthmaker semantics but also to develop an original Australianstyle truthmaker semantics.

Date of Award	30 Jun 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews
Supervisor	Franz Berto (Supervisor) & Greg Restall (Supervisor)