ABSTRACT
Inspired by the work of Alfred Tarski (1901-83) during the 1920s and 1930s, logicians have developed sophisticated semantic treatments of a wide variety of systems of formal logic (see FORMAL LOGIC AND MODAL LOGIC). Since the 1960s, as these semantic treatments have been extended to tense logic, modal logic, and a variety of other systems simulating more of the expressions employed in a natural language, many linguists and philosophers have seen the prospect of a systematic treatment of the semantics of natural languages. Richard Montague, David Lewis, Max Cresswell, Donald Davidson, and others have attempted to use these techniques to develop semantic theories for natural languages.
