Davidsonian semantics

A theory of semantics proposed by the British philosopher Donald Davidson (1917–2003), which argues that a theory of truth for a natural language constitutes a theory of meaning for that language. The meaning of any sentence is derivable from axioms which assign semantic properties to its constituents, and sentence structures are linked by valid inferential relations. The term neo-Davidsonian is used for a particular approach to the analysis of THEMATIC ROLES, in which VERBS are regarded as 1-place PREDICATES of events, and thematic roles are treated as 2-place relations between individuals and events; sometimes called event semantics. In a neo-Davidsonian analysis, a sentence such as John hit Bill on the arm would be assigned a LOGICAL FORM such as ∃(e[hit(e) & agent(e, John) & patient(e, Bill) & location(e, the arm)]), where ∃ is the existential quantifier (‘there exists one or more members in the universe . . .’) and e is a special variable over events. The extent to which sentences can be analyzed in terms of event variables is controversial, especially in VIEW of STATIVE and other types of sentence which do not refer to events.