Dieses Bild zeigt Hans Kamp

Hans Kamp

Herr Prof. Dr. h.c., PhD

Professor für Formale Logik und Sprachphilosophie
Institut für Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung

Kontakt

Pfaffenwaldring 5 b
70569 Stuttgart
Deutschland
Raum: 01.008

“Enthymemes”, System Development Corporation Report, 1967, 13 pages.

“Formal Properties of ‘Now’”, Theoria, Vol. XXXVII (1971), pt. 3, pp. 227–273.

“Free Choice Permission”, Aristotelian Society Proceedings, 1973, pp. 57–74.

“The Philosophical Significance of Intensional Logic”, Aristotelian Society Supplementary, Volume XXXLX, 1975, pp. 21–44.

“Reference and Quantification in Tense and Model Logic”, in: S. Schmidt (ed.), Pragmatics II, Finck, München, 1975, pp. 150–197.

“Two Theories About Adjectives”, in: E. Keenan (ed.), Formal Semantics of Natural Languages, Cambridge University Press, 1975, pp. 123–155.

“The Adequacy of Translation Between Formal and Natural Languages”, in: F. Guenthner & M. Guenthner-Reutter (eds.), Meaning and Translation, Duckworth, London, 1978, pp. 275–306.

“Semantics Versus Pragmatics”, in: F. Guenthner & S. Schmidt (eds.), Formal Semantics and Pragmatics for Natural Languages, Dordrecht, 1978, pp. 255–287.

“Events, Instants and Temporal Reference”, in: R. Bäuerle, U. Egli, & A. von Stechow (eds.), Semantics from Different Points of View, Springer, Berlin, 1979, pp. 131–175.

“Some Remarks on the Logic of Change” in: Chr. Rohrer (ed.), Time, Tense and Quantifiers, Niemeyer, Tübingen, 1980, pp. 103–114.

“Kommentar zu Seurens, ‘Dreiwertige Logik und die Semantik Natürlicher Sprachen’”, in: J. Ballweg & H. Glinz (eds.), Grammatik und Logik. Jahrbuch 1979 des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache, Schwann, Düsseldorf, 1980, pp. 103–114.

“A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation”, in: J. Groenendijk, Th. Janssen & M. Stokhof (eds.), Formal Methods in the Study of Language, Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam, 1981, pp. 277–322.

“The Paradox of the Heap”, in: U. Mönnich (ed.), Aspects of Philosophical Logic, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1981, pp. 225–277.

“Référence Temporelle et Représentation du Discours”, Languages, 1981, pp. 36–64.

A Scenic Tour through the Land of Naked Infinitives”, Manuscript 1983.

“Tense in Texts” (with Christian Rohrer), in: R. Bäuerle, Chr. Schwarze & A. von Stechow (eds.), Meaning, Use and Interpretation of Language, De Gruyter, Berlin, 1983, pp. 250–269.

“Context, Thought and Communication”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1984–85, pp. 239–261.

“The Knower's Paradox and Representational Theories of the Attitudes” (with Nicholas Asher), in: J. Halpern (ed.), Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge, Morgan Kaufmann, Los Angeles, 1986, pp. 131–148.

“Quantifiers Defined by Parametric Extensions” (with Daniel Bonevac), University of Texas, Austin, Cognitive Science Center Report, 1987.

“Conditionals in DR Theory”, in: J. Hoepelman (ed.), Representation and Reasoning, Niemeyer, Tübingen, 1988, pp. 66–124.

“Discourse Representation Theory: What it is and where it ought to go”, in: A. Bläser (ed.), Natural Language and the Computer, Springer, Berlin, 1988, pp. 84–111.

“Comments on Stalnaker, Belief Attribution and Context”, in: R. Grimm & D. Merrill (eds.), Contents of Thought, University of Arizona Press, 1988, pp. 156–181.

“Self-Reference, Attitudes and Paradox” (with Nicholas Asher), in: G. Chierchia, B. Partee & R. Turner (eds.), Properties, Types and Meaning, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1989, pp. 85–157.

“Prolegomena to a Structural Account of Belief and Other Attitudes”, in: C.A. Anderson & J. Owens (eds.), Propositional Attitudes, CSLI 1990, pp. 27–90.

“Comments on: J. Groenendijk & M. Stokhof, Dynamic Predicate Logic”, in: J. van Benthem (ed.), Partial and Dynamic Semantics, Part I. Dyana Deliverable 2.1.A, 1990, pp. 109–131.

“Uniqueness Presuppositions and Plural Anaphora in DTT and DRT”, in: M. Stokhof, J. Groenendijk & D. Beaver (eds.), Quantification and Anaphora I. Dyana Deliverable R2.2A, 1991, pp. 177–195.

“The Perfect and other Tenses in French and English”, in: H. Kamp (ed.), Tense and Aspect in English and French. Dyana Deliverable R2.3B, 1991, pp. 41–64.

“Negation in Situation Semantics and Discourse Representation Theory” (with Robin Cooper), in: Jon Barwise, Jean Mark Gawron, Gordon Plotkin & Syun Tutiya (eds.), Situation Theory and Its Applications, Vol. 2, Stanford, CSLI, 1991, p. 311–333.

“On the Form of Lexical Entries and their Use in the Construction of Discourse Representation Structures” (with Antje Roßdeutscher), in: W. Brauer & D. Hernandez (eds.), Verteilte Künstliche Intelligenz und Kooperatives Arbeiten, 4. GI-Konferenz, Wissensbasierte Systeme, München, Oktober 1991, pp. 384–393.

“On the Representation and Transmission of Information”, in: F. Veltman (ed.), Proceedings of the Dyana Workshop on Computational Linguistics, Brussels, November 1991.

“Remarks on Lexical Structure and DRS-Construction” (with Antje Roßdeutscher), Bericht des SFB 340, Stuttgart, 1992.

From Discourse to Logic”. Vol. 1 (with Uwe Reyle). Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1993.

“Disambiguation in Discourse”. In: M. Aurnague & M. Bras (eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth Toulouse Workshop on the Verbalization of Space, Time and Motion. Toulouse, 1993.

“Remarks on Lexical Structure and DRS Construction” (with Antje Roßdeutscher), in: Theoretical Linguistics. Vol. 20, (2/3), 1994, pp. 97–164.

“DRS Construction and Lexically Driven Inference” (with Antje Roßdeutscher), in: Theoretical Linguistics. Vol. 20, (2/3), 1994, pp. 165–235.

“Discourse Representation Theory”, in: J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman & J. Blommaert (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics, Benjamins, 1995, pp. 253–257.

“Prototype Theory and Compositionality” (with Barbara Partee). Cognition, August 1995.

“A Calculus for First Order Discourse Representation Structures” (with Uwe Reyle), in: JOLLI (Journal for Logic, Language and Information), 1996.

“Representing Discourse in Context” (with Jan van Eijck), in: J. van Benthem & A. ter Meulen (eds.), Handbook of Logic, Language and Information, Elsevier, 1996.

“Expecting ‘Many’” (with Tim Fernando), in Proceedings of SALT 6.

“On Context Dependence in Modal Constructions” (with Anette Frank), in Proceedings of SALT 7.

“What a linguist might want to know about ‘Most’ and other Quantifiers”, in: H.J. Ohlbach, (ed.), Festschrift for Dov Gabbay. OUP, 1999.

“Temporal Location in Natural Language”, (with Michael Schiehlen) in Hans Kamp & Uwe Reyle (eds.), How we say WHEN it happens. Contributions to the theory of temporal reference in natural language, pp. 181–232, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2001.

“Information Structure in a Dynamic Theory of Meaning” In: Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of Korea Conference. Seoul, 2004. doc icon

Im Erscheinen:

“Computation and Justification of Presuppositions”, submitted for inclusion in M. Bras & L. Vieu (eds.) Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse and Dialogue: Experimenting with current theories, Elsevier, 2001. postscript icon

“The Importance of Presupposition”, in: Chr. Rohrer & A. Roßdeutscher (eds.) Linguistic Form and its Computation. Selected papers from the SFB 340. CSLI 2001. postscript icon

Thinking and Talking about Things’, (Jean Nicod Lectures). MIT Press.

ESSLLI 2001 Lecture Notes on Indefinites” (with A. Bende-Farkas). postscript icon

Ups and Downs in the Theory of Temporal Reference” (with A. Roßdeutscher & U. Reyle). postscript icon pdf icon

  • Introductory Logic I. approximately 150 pages. postscript icon
  • Introductory Logic II. (old version). postscript icon
  • Introductory Logic II. (2004 version until“Natürliche Deduktion”). pdf icon
  • Skript Logik II. Kap. 1. PDF
  • Skript Logik II. Kap. 2. PDF
  • Skript Logik II. Kap. 3. PDF
  • Skript Semantik II.pdf
  • Hans Kamp and Martin Stokhof: Information in Natural Language.In: Pieter Adriaans and Johan van Benthem (eds.) Handbook of thePhilosophy of Information. frthc. Elsevier.pdf

Date of birth

5 September 1940, at Den Burg, Texel, Holland

Education

1952–58
High School: Murmellius Gymnasium, Alkmaar, Holland
1958–61
Undergraduate: University of Leiden, Holland; B.A. in Physics and Mathematics
1961–65
Graduate: University of Amsterdam, Holland
Drs. in Logic, Foundations of Mathematics and Philosophy of the Empirical Sciences, with Physics and Mathematics as subsidiary subjects
1965–68
Graduate: University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Ph.D. in Philosophy
Dissertation: Tense Logic and the Theory of Linear Order
Doctoral Committee: R. Montague (Chairman), C.C. Chang, A. Church, D. Kaplan, Y. Moschovakis, H. Sobel.

 

I started academic life as a student in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 1958; my aim was to become a theoretical physicist. After my B.A. in 1961 I wanted to do something quite different for a year before throwing myself into the black hole of theoretical physics from which, I was told by people in the know, there would be no return. So I went to join – but only for the mentioned year, or so I thought – to the recently founded Institute for Logic and Foundations of Science of E. W. Beth in Amsterdam. Once there I got hooked and stayed, thus exchanging, some would say, one black hole for another. But it has proved to be a nice hole, and sliding into it ever more deeply has been exhilarating at times, and never dull.

From Amsterdam I went to UCLA to become a doctoral student of Richard Montague. During my three year stay at UCLA I took advantage of the very strong presence of Mathematical Logic in the Mathematics Department there, with, among others, C.C. Chang and Yannis Moschovakis. Equally important for me was that I got to know, during my first semester at UCLA, the philosopher and logician Arthur Prior. Prior was to become, together with Beth and Montague, the strongest influence on my intellectual development and lasting scientific convictions. It was Prior's seminar on tense logic at UCLA in the fall of '65 which gave me the topic for my dissertation. My greatest debt, however, is to Richard Montague. Montague taught me how research in formal logic and “formal philosophy” is done by tolerating my presence on uncountable occasions when he was doing his own work. This is surely an unconventional and highly unusual way of educating a graduate student, but it is one from which I learned much that I could not have learned in any other way and it gave me a sense of intellectual quality and honesty that I have tried to live by ever since.

After UCLA I taught for two years in the Philosophy Department of Cornell University, then spent a year as an assistant to Anne Troelstra in the Mathematics Department of Amsterdam University. After that I was attached for another 18 years to Departments of Philosophy – of University College, London; Bedford College (at the time both of these were independent parts of the University of London); the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and the University of Texas, Austin. Since 1988 I have been at the IMS (Institute for Computational Linguistics) of the University of Stuttgart, where I expect to remain until (formal) retirement in 2005. Teaching in many departments which are partly devoted to different subjects is certainly no licence for not belonging to any one discipline in particular, but it is an important causal factor in producing this state of affairs. (I cope with this by telling linguists that I am not really a linguist, by telling philosophers that I am not really a philosopher, by telling logicians that I am not really a logician, and so on – a strategy that works quite well as far as it goes; unfortunately it doesn't go very far.)

Over the years my research interests have converged ever more strongly on the question how human beings represent meaning and how those representations enable them to do the various things that people do with information, such as drawing inferences and making plans for action, and most particularly, how they obtain such representations from what we read or are told, and how we reconvert them into words when we want to communicate them to others. Because of their linguistic dimension these interests subsume most of semantics and pragmatics, large parts of logic and in view of their language-transcendent dimension they include pretty much all that belongs within a general Theory of Information of the sort that is slowly but steadily taking shape.

A more specific concern within this much larger domain has been, for more than two decades now, with the question how natural language gets around the obstacle of our limited capacity for processing complex sentences. When a sentence gets very long, noone can understand it. Therefore we are forced, when narrating a intricate story or explaining a complex state of affairs, to produce a discourse consisting of many sentences of reasonable size, instead of one single sentence which would say all if anyone could figure out what it said. The sentences in such a discourse must hang together in recognizable ways, so that the interpreter can reconstruct the complex course of events or state of affairs they describe by integrating their individual contributions into a single coherent picture, or representation. Because of the many kinds of intersentential prongs and sockets of which they have availed themselves in order to make this possible, natural languages differ quite crucially from the predicate claculus and similar artificial languages of formal logic. And understanding how the intersentential prongs and sockets fit together is a challenge not just for the student of language but for anyone who wants to develop a better sense of how human beings mange to process information generally.

Context dependence of meaning, and the dynamic character of interpretation which it entails – each new sentence in a text or utterance in a dialogue gets interpreted in the context of what came before it and contributes to the context for what comes after it – are an intriguing and essential feature of the way in which natural languages work. How context dependence in language works in detail, and how central it is to the way in which meaning is verbally expressed are matters of which we now understand a good deal more, I believe, than we did thirty, twenty or ten years ago. But there are other aspects of meaning which are equally important but which have so far proved frustratingly recalcitrant to the formal methods of analysis which I (among many others) have endeavoured to apply to the study of language. First, virtually all natural language concepts are vague, or at least potentially vague – there always will be or could be borderline cases. Secondly, very commonly the use we make of words is in some sense or other non-literal, metonymic or metaphorical.

Vagueness is an inevitable consequence of our epistemic relations to almost anything that we can turn into an object of thought, with the objects of pure mathematics presumably as only exception); and the various forms of non-literal usage mirror our ability to “think in images” – to transfer structures from one cognit have a clearer picture of how the mind makes contact with the world and how it adapts existing modes of thought to new challenges with which the world confronts it, can we hope to be in a position to account for the these aspects of language, in which these general mental dispositions find their verbal reflection. This is as much a philosophical project as a linguistic one, and in the light of the rapid progress we have ben witnessing in the cognitive sciences it now looks like it can (and so it should) also be a project in cognitive science. If there are any issues that I would like to make some advances in the years to come, then it is these.

[Often, in such autobiographical vignettes the author includes a list of passions or hobbies. That I have too many of those to list would be an exageration, though by my own reckoning there are quite a few. Yet I do not make a try of listing them. I have been lucky in that “hobby” is a very good description (and “passion” a close second) for what I have been doing for a living most of the time during all of my working life. If, as I note with regret on the reasonably rare occasions when I take stock, that this one “hobby” has pretty much crowded out all others, that still seems a modest price to pay for the luck of doing for pay what one wants to do anyway and what in someimportant sense one really believes in. Life and society being what they are, this is a luck that seems to by passing by most of us (including, even, quite a few academics!) If that is so, then a price would have to be very high before it is too high for the luck I know I have had. Certainly sacrificing one hobby for another is a very modest expense.]

1968
Instructor, Department of Philosophy, UCLA, Spring Quarter;
1968–70
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Cornell University;
1970–71
Wetenschappelijk medewerker, Department of Mathematics, University of Asterdam;
1971–74
Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University College, London;
1974
Visiting Associate Professor, UCLA, Spring Semester;
1974
Visiting Professor, Summer Institute of Linguistics, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts;
1974–80
Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of London (Bedford College);
1976
Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, MIT;
1978
Visiting Associate Professor, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas;
1980–84
Reader in Philosophy, University of London (Bedford College);
Spring 1983
Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts;
Fall 1984
Professor of Philosophy, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas;
Summer 1988
Full Professor, Formal Logics and Philosophy of Language at the Institut für Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung, Universität Stuttgart;
Spring 1997
Visiting Professor, Department of Linguistics & Philosophy, UCLA.

Meaning and the Dynamics of Interpretation

Selected Writings of Hans Kamp

Edited by Klaus von Heusinger, University of Cologne and Alice ter Meulen, University of Geneva

This selection of research papers written by Hans Kamp presents the core of his scientific research on natural language semantics and its relation to logic, philosophy and linguistics. Arranged in six sections, the topics range from philosophical reflection on the foundational issues in the ancient Sorites Paradox with a formal account of its solution, to a detailed account of presuppositions in dynamic semantics.

Ranking among the philosophers with great and lasting influence on formal semantics, Hans Kamp contributed early foundational research to core theoretical topics like temporal reference and vagueness, then pushed the boundaries of the discipline in new and productive directions. Showing the importance of non-truth-functional aspects of meaning, Discourse Representation Theory proved the value of a dynamic approach to interaction of text and context for our understanding of anaphora, word meaning and context-dependence. This collection shows very clearly how Kamp has forged ground-breaking connections among semantics, computation, and mental representation, challenging the once dominant Fregean anti-psychologism, while demonstrating that the best theoretical research can simultaneously yield important computational applications and novel cognitive insights.

Barbara Partee, University of Massachussetts Amherst

Publisher Website

Dyana (1989–1995).

Sonderforschungsbereich “Spachtheoretische Methoden für die Computerlinguistik” (SFB 340). (1989–2000).

FraCaS (1995–1997).

Logik in der Philosophie, DFG Forschergruppe (2000–2002).

 

Discourse Representation Theory

DRAFT of article for the newedition of the Handbook of Philosophical Logic, jointly with Josef van Genabith and Uwe Reyle postscript icon pdf icon

 

Slides for DRT: An Updated Survey (course at ESSLLI 2003) – AgnesBende-Farkas, Josef Van Genabith & Hans Kamp

  • Construction of DRSs; Presupposition pdf icon
  • Intensional Semantics postscript icon
  • Propositional Attitudes postscript icon
  • Information Structure in DRT postscript icon
Summer 1973
Participant at the MBBS Workshop on Semantics at The University of Michigan;
Summer 1974
Participant at the MBBS Workshop on Formal Semantics at The University of Massachusetts;
Spring, Summer 1980
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Cognitive Science at The University of Texas, Austin;
1980–81
Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford California);
Fall 1982
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Cognitive Science, The University of Texas, Austin;
1978–82
Participant in the DFG project on Tense and Aspect in the Romance Languages, Stuttgart, West Germany;
1984
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Cognitive Science, The University of Texas (for 50% of the academic year);
Summer 1983/84/85
Visitor, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University;
Summer 1985
Research at The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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