Montague grammar

A movement in LINGUISTIC theory in the mid-1970s which owes its impetus to the thinking of the American logician Richard Montague (1930–71). The approach uses a conceptual apparatus derived from the study of the semantics of FORMAL (logical) LANGUAGES, and applies it to the analysis of natural languages. The GRAMMAR contains a SYNTACTIC and a SEMANTIC COMPONENT, which are strictly related, in that there is a one-to-one correspondence between CATEGORIES set up at the two levels. The syntax is introduced through CATEGORIAL RULES which define syntactic categories. The corresponding semantic rules construct a PROPOSITIONAL interpretation of these sentences, using the notions of truth-conditional predicate logic. The approach has been modified and extended in several ways – notably in relation to GENERALIZED PHRASESTRUCTURE GRAMMAR. Approaches showing Montague’s influence are sometimes characterized as ‘Montagovian’.