Glossary:Sorts/Types

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Sorts/Types

AE:

• Type: (/taɪp/)
• Sort: (/sɔː(r)t/)

Definition

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 s, t made up of (basic or complex) types s, t
are types. s, t is the type of functions which map
arguments of type s to values of type t.
In short: The set of types is the smallest set T such that
e,tÎT, and if s,t ÎT, then also s,t ÎT.
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.