From Montague Grammar to Database Semantics

This paper retraces the development of Database Semantics (DBS) from its beginnings in Montague grammar. It describes the changes over the course of four decades and explains why they were seen to be necessary. DBS was designed to answer the central theoretical question for building a talking robot: How does the mechanism of natural language communication work? For doing what is requested and reporting what is going on, a talking robot requires not only language but also non-language cognition. The contents of non-language cognition are re-used as the meanings of the language surfaces. Robot-externally, DBS handles the language-based transfer of content by using nothing but modality-dependent unanalyzed external surfaces such as sound shapes or dots on paper, produced in the speak mode and recognized n the hear mode. Robot-internally, DBS reconstructs cognition by integrating linguistic notions like functor-argument and coordination, philosophical notions like concept-, pointer-, and baptism-based reference, and notions of computer science like input-output, interface, data structure, algorithm, database schema, and functional flow.