• oὐκ ἐμοῦ ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁμολογεῖν σοφόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι (Herakleitos)
• Welcome to the page of a researcher studying and teaching in the area of Logic and Language. My work is concerned with the  public and intentional nature of meaning, and my generic interests include belief, indexicality, quantification and satisfaction in discourse.
• I have been the Amsterdam representative, 2014-25, in the European Network of the Philosophy of Language and Mind (PLM). I have directed MSc Logic program of the University of Amsterdam 2020-23, and I have been the chair of the Standing Committee of the European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI) for a decade, 2007--17.

Academic Legacy

I have compiled my findings from the past 10 years or so in a monograph The Logical Apparance of Meaning. It may serve as a subject for contemplation in a workshop devoted to my retirement, January 12--13, 2026. The first chapter outlines the logical spine of a Discourse Presentation Theory. This basic framework has three entirely straightforward extensions, improving our grasp of, respectively, Contextually Restricted Quantification, of Quantification through Conceptual Windows, and of Thought and Talk about Things non-Existent. The three extensions have been independently formulated also in a classical logical formalism, thereby preserving all the results, but not their natural logic and aesthetics. (CRQ, CGQ, TNE) The monograph in addition hosts three small pieces on the declarative, referential and anaphoric logic of names.

ESSLLI 2022

Below are the slides used in the course Theory of Interpretation that I presented at ESSLLI 2022, in Galway, Ireland, August 8-12. As a tool for the preparation of the first class I have cooked up a handsome, I hope, introduction to Natural Deduction.

Handbook of Formal Semantics

(ed. Maria Aloni and Paul Dekker) Appeared in the series Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics.

Indexical Inference

This paper advocates an indexical account of discourse reference, and provides a sound and complete deduction system for a (variable free) system of discourse representation and dynamic interpretation. Review of Symbolic Logic, in 2016.

Not Only Barbara

This paper explicates the transparent syllogistics for a cube of oppositions, and pleads for a non-conservative theory of generalized quantifiers in natural language. Journal of Logic, Language and Information, 2015.

Live Meanings

This paper is a follow up of the one on Live Compositionality and reflects upon the enterprises of compositional, truth-conditional, contextual and conceptual semantics. In Bridging Formal and Conceptual Semantics, 2017, Kata Balogh and Wiebke Petersen (eds.), Studies in Language and Cognition, Düsseldorf University Press.

The Logos

The pre-socratic philosopher Herakleitos has demonstrated a logos, which contains more of a logic then the syllogoi of his postdecessors. In New Dimensions of the Square of Opposition, 2017, Jean-Yves Beziau and Stamatios Gerogiorgakis (eds.), Philosophia Verlag, München.

• Existential Disclosure, 1993, Linguistics and Philosophy
• The Values of Variables in Dynamic Semantics, 1996, Linguistics and Philosophy
• Scopes in Discourse, 1999, Journal of Language and Computation

Some propositions, not obviously original, on:

• How to do Syllogistic Logic (in a cube JoLLI 2015 §2)
• How to do Propositional Logic (without connectives RSL 2016 §1)
• How to do Predicate Logic (without variables and objects RSL 2016 §3; DS 2012 §2; PLA 1994)
• How to do Generalized Quantifiers (JoLLI 2015 §3; DS 2012 §4.1; L&P 2008; L&P 2003)
• How to do TC Semantics (with live meanings Düsseldorf 2016; Frankfurt 2014; Riga 2010)
• How to do Discourse Reference (without problems RSL 2016 §2)
• How to do Indexical Inference (with self-reference RSL 2016 §5; She's#2001; ID2004/1995)
• How to do Intentional Objects (without commitment SAJL 2017 §4)
• How to do "Many" (JoLLI 2015 §3.3)
• How to do "Only" (JoLLI 2015 §3.4; SALT 2001)
• How to do "Else" (Questions 2007; SUB 2003)
• How to do "Might" (AC2010)
• How to do Xena (JoLLI 2015 p. 103-6)

I was the chair of the  ESSLLI Standing Committee that coodinated the organization and programme of the European Summer Schools in Logic, Language and Information from 2007 till 2018.

• Sofia, 2018, with Darja Fiser (SC), Petya Osenova and Kiril Simov (OC) and Laura Kallmeyer (PC)
• Toulouse, 2017, with Laure Vieu (OC) and Shravan Vasishth (PC)
• Bolzano, 2016, with Diego Calvanese and Rafaella Bernardi (OC) and Claire Gardent (PC)
• Barcelona, 2015, with Louise McNally (OC), Gemma Boleda (OC/PC) and Achim Jung (PC)
• Tübingen, 2014, with Gerhard Jäger (OC) and Frank Veltman (PC)
• Düsseldorf, 2013, with Laura Kallmeyer (OC), Wiebke Petersen  (OC/PC) and Johan Bos (PC)
• Opole, 2012, with Janusz Czelakowski and Urszula Wybraniec-Skardowska (OC) and Andreas Herzig (PC)
• Ljubljana, 2011, with Darja Fiser (OC) and Makoto Kanazawa (PC)
• Kopenhagen, 2010, Vincent Hendricks (OC) and Valentin Goranko (PC)
• Bordeaux, 2009, with Christian Retoré (OC) Richard Moot (OC/PC) and Uwe Mönnich (PC)
• Hamburg, 2008, with Benedikt Löwe (OC), Hans van Ditmarsch (OC/PC) and Rineke Verbrugge (PC)

I have been involved in the organization of the bi-annual Amsterdam Colloquium from 1991 onwards (as chair from the 10-th, 1995 till the 16-th, 2007), and in many other international conferences, workshops and events.