Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics of Contexts

Thenotion of context is indispensable in discussions of meaning,but the wordcontext has often beenusedin conflicting senses. In logic, the first representation of contextas a formalobject was by the philosopherC. S. Peirce; but for nearly eighty years, his treatment wasunknownoutside a small groupof Peirce aficionados. In the early 1980s,three newtheories included related notions of context: Kamp’sdiscourse representation theory; Barwiseand Perry’s situation semantics; and Sowa’sconceptual graphs, which explicitly introduced Peirce’s approach to the AI community.Morerecently, John McCarthyandhis students havebegunto use a closely related notion of contextas a basis for organizing and partitioning knowledgebases. Eachof the theories has distinctive, but complementaryideas that can enrich the others, but the relationships betweenthemare far fromclear. This paper analyzes the semanticfoundations of these theories and showshowMcCarthy’sist(c,p) predicate can be interpreted in ter...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1995
• Where: ICCS
• Authors: John F. Sowa
• Keywords: Applied Computing, Groupof Peirce Aficionados, ICCS 1995, Perry’s Situation Semantics, Related Notion