Prof. Fengkui Ju  

School of Philosophy Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

Semantics and Logic for Imperatives

Thursday, October 10th, 2019 at 16:00

the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

Room GG-208

Abstract

Imperatives may express different speech acts, such as command, prohibition, request, and even curse. Generally speaking, they are used to change the world by influencing the behaviors of addressees, not to describe the world. In this sense, they do not have truth values. Still, we can reason about them. In this talk a formal semantics for imperatives, based on the framework of update semantics will be presented and a notion of validity suitable for inferences involving imperatives will be given. Sentences of mixed (descriptive and imperative) modes will also be discussed.