Quantification is a topic which brings together linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Quantifiers are the essential tools with which, in language or logic, we refer to quantity of things or amount of stuff. In English they include such expressions as no, some, all, both, and many. Peters and Westerstahl present the definitive interdisciplinary exploration of how they work - their syntax, semantics, and inferential role.
Quantifiers in Language and Logic is intended for everyone with a scholarly interest in the exact treatment of meaning. It presents a broad view of the semantics and logic of quantifier expressions in natural languages and, to a slightly lesser extent, in logical languages. The authors progress carefully from a fairly elementary level to considerable depth over the course of sixteen chapters; their book will be invaluable to a broad spectrum of readers, from those with a basic knowledge of linguistic semantics and of first-order logic to those with advanced knowledge of semantics, logic, philosophy of language, and knowledge representation in artificial intelligence.

Review

This book gives a comprehensive account of quantifiers in _ both natural and formal languages, drawing on both _ linguistics and model theory. It creates a number of _ paradigms, because nothing so general has been attempted _ before. Much of the material is new or has never appeared_ in book form, but the authors have taken enormous care to _ pitch their exposition at a level that non-specialists can_ follow. (Wilfrid Hodges, Queen Mary University of London_)

This is a high-quality, informative, and authoritative study, offering a clear overview of the denotational semantics of natural language quantifiers, some new results, and a first frontal assault on analysing the expressive power of natural languages. A substantial, intereresting, challenging work. (Edward Keenan, UCLA)

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