Project description DEENESFRITPL Paving the way for a unified approach to truth and semantics Self-referential sentences challenge the development of natural language semantics. These sentences refer to themselves, such as the famous liar sentence: ‘This sentence is not true’. This has been largely ignored by semanticists, who have left the field to philosophical logicians working on paradoxes such as the paradoxes of truth. Addressing this, the EU-funded TRUST project will offer a unified perspective on natural language semantics – truth-conditional semantics. The project will be the first systematic study of truth and natural language semantics from a combined perspective. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective """Anne believes that Bob assumes that Anne believes that Bob's assumption is false. Does Anne believe that Bob's assumption is false?"" Don't try too hard answering the question - any straightforward attempt will lead to paradox.But what are we to make of sentences such as ""Anne believes that Bob's assumption is false."" Is the sentence true or false? On the face of it, it would seem that answering this question is a pressing problem for natural language semantics that assigns truth conditions to sentences of natural language. However, semanticists have largely ignored problems of this kind, leaving the field to philosophical logicians working on paradoxes, in particular, the paradoxes of truth such as the Liar paradox. But research on the paradoxes of truth has often focused on exploring the space of possible coherent ""solutions"" to the paradoxes thereby ignoring desiderata of natural language semantics. The project provides a unified perspective on natural language semantics, conceived of as truth-conditional semantics, and the research on the so-called semantic paradoxes in form of theories of self-applicable truth. A unified approach to truth and semantics will need to answer two principal challenges, which divides the research project into two interrelated parts. The first part, Truth in Semantics, aims at developing semantic accounts for rich fragments of natural language, that is, fragments in which, besides the notion of truth, we allow for, e.g. modal expressions, propositional attitudes but also natural language conditionals. The second part, Truth and the Foundations of Semantics, assumes a metasemantic perspective and explores the role of the notion of truth in the foundations of natural language semantics, conceived of as truth-conditional semantics. The project constitutes the first systematic study of truth and natural language semantics from such a combined perspective." Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2018-STG - ERC Starting Grant Call for proposal ERC-2018-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-STG - Starting Grant Coordinator UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL Net EU contribution € 1 457 105,00 Address Beacon house queens road BS8 1QU Bristol United Kingdom See on map Region South West (England) Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath area Bristol, City of Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 1 457 105,00 Address Beacon house queens road BS8 1QU Bristol See on map Region South West (England) Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath area Bristol, City of Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
