Chapter 3 The Logical Foundations of Language Syntax Ontology

Abstract

The paper formalizes the issue of logical syntax of categorial language, taking into account the dual ontological status of linguistic objects treated—on the one hand—as material, physical object-concretes (linguistic tokens) and—on the other one—as abstract ideal objects (linguistic types). At the same time, there is account taken of two opposing approaches towards formalization of language, connected with two trends in ontology of language: nominalism and Platonian version of realism. The author presents two formal theories of language syntax, which derive from opposing ontological assumptions. The first of them departs from the assumption that the primitive layer of language are expression-concretes (expressiontokens) and the secondary one—abstract expressions (expression-types), while the other assumption accepts the opposite standpoint. The author proves equivalence of the presented theories, which allows her to formulate the philosophical thesis that in formal-logical syntactic considerations on language, the assumption of the primary existence of abstract linguistic beings can be neglected.