Glossary:Types

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Types

AE:

• Type: (/taɪp/)

Definition

In logic and semantics a concept of type is often used to distinguish different kinds of expression (and of semantic value). These types are used as syntactic categories for the expressions in the semantic representation language. Each type will correspond to a certain set of possible denotations.
The (minimal) set of basic types is {e, t}:
– e (for entity) is the type of individual terms
– t (for truth value) is the type of formulae
All pairs <ϭ, τ> made up of (basic or complex) types ϭ, τ are types. <ϭ, τ> is the type of functions which map arguments of type ϭ to values of type τ.
In short: The set of types is the smallest set T such that e,tєT, and if ϭ,τ єT, then also <ϭ,τ> єT.