Brasoveanu, Adrian 2006. Structured Discourse
Reference to Propositions, to appear in the Proceedings of Logic &
Language 9.
The paper introduces a notion
of structured discourse referents which, together with a possible-worlds
analysis of intensional phenomena, accounts for examples of modal subordination
and entailment particles. The resulting compositional dynamic system – couched
in classical type logic – captures the truth-conditions of and the modal and
individual-level anaphoric connections established in discourses like:
[A] man cannot live without
joy. Therefore, when he is deprived of true spiritual joys, it is necessary
that he become addicted to carnal pleasures. (Thomas Aquinas, attributed)