Paradigms for Language Theory

Abstract

Language can be viewed either as a rule-governed process (the recursive paradigm) or as a goal-directed process (the strategic paradigm). The former has dominated recent approaches to language, such as generative grammar, reliance on compositionality, formalizations of logical and mathematical reasoning, etc. The strategic paradigm is instantiated by game-theoretical semantics and certain aspects of Wittgenstein's development. Test cases are constituted by semantical phenomena which are not marked syntactically. They are instantiated by transcategorial phenomena like informational independence in the sense of game-theoretical semantics, including the so-called "de dicto" vs. "de re" distinction.