The role of logic in linguistics - Formal model formation and functional linguistic theory

This paper discusses the relationship of logic and linguistics and pleads for logic-based formal model building in linguistic theory. At first, I describe the assignments and the purpose of logic in arts in general and the interrelation between logic and linguistics. Taking into account philosophical conditions and the subject of both, language, I argue for a functional-linguistic point of view. A detailed investigation is devoted to the concept of predicates. Based on logical theory, namely the non-traditional theory of predication and the term-theory developed by A. A. Sinowjew and H. Wessel, a formal approach to modelling linguistic comprehensions of predicates is devised. On this base I carry out a logical reconstruction of some concepts of linguistic theory, like the quantitative and qualitative features of arguments and their thematic roles, and explain their relations to logical predicate-argument-structures. In a further step predicate forming operations are used to describe and to reconstruct diatheses, argument deletion and the influence of mass terms on predication. By this, I want to introduce formal tools for the explanation of such natural-language phenomena and line out how the formal results allow to solve several puzzles.