Abstract

The paper addresses foundational questions concerning the dynamic semantics of natural language based on dynamic logic of the Groenendijko-Stokhofian kind. Discussing a series of model calculi of increasing complexity, it shows in detail how the usual semantics of dynamic logic can be seen as emerging from the account for certain inferential patterns of natural language, namely those governing anaphora. In this way, the current ‘dynamic turn’ of logic is argued to be reasonably seen not as the product of changing the focus of logic from the relation of entailment to „a structure of human cognitive action“ (van Benthem), but rather as merely another step in our long-term effort to master more and more inferential patterns.