Funding agency: FWF (Austria)
Projectdetail: https://www.fwf.ac.at/en/research-radar/10.55776/I6499
Principal Investigator: Matteo Pascucci
Host institution: CEU (Vienna)
Partner institution: LMU (Munich)
Funding agency for the partner institution: DFG (Germany)
Principal Investigator at the partner institution: Jonas Raab
Type of project: Austria-Germany bilateral project
Abstract
In ordinary reasoning we often use sentences combining quantifying expressions (such as "all", "some", "most", etc.) and modal expressions (such as "must", "can", "should", etc.). The analysis of the structure and of the interpretation of these sentences has given rise to an intense debate over the last few decades. Many proposals are nowadays available and yet there is little consensus on how to answer fundamental questions like the following:
What counts as an appropriate logical representation of sentences including modal expressions and quantifiers?
What are the semantic ingredients required to interpret such sentences?
Does an interpretation of such sentences commit one to claim the existence of any sort of entity (such as possible worlds, possible individuals, etc.)?
In the present project, we will address these questions and related problems within an innovative formal framework that combines modal logic and the Quantified Argument Calculus. The former component offers technical tools that have been corroborated by a long tradition of studies; the latter component offers a new perspective on the relation between natural languages and formal languages.
Team Members
Matteo Pascucci (Principal Investigator)
Pietro Vigiani (Postdoctoral researcher, May-October 2025)
Inbal Blum (PhD assistant, February-July 2026)
Pelin Kasar (PhD assistant, September 2026-present)
Visiting Researchers
Bailey Fernandez (PhD student at MIT, June-August 2026)
Publications
F. Barrera and M. Pascucci (2026). "Classical deductive reasoning in a metalogic framework". In: Proceedings of HAR2026, 18 pages.
I. Gapagov and M. Pascucci (2026). "Some challenges for formal theories of responsibility". In: Proceedings of the 15th Panhellenic Logic Symposium, 5 pages.
S. Frijters and M. Pascucci (2025). "Formalizing decisional and operational roles in legal contracts via term-modal logic". In: D. Porello, C. Vinci and M. Zavatteri (Eds.), Proceedings of OVERLAY 2024, pp. 57-63.
H. Yin and M. Pascucci (2024). "Decidability of ordered fragments of FOL via modal translation". In: E. De Angelis and M. Proietti (Eds.), Proceedings of CILC 2024, 15 pages.
Events
September 18-19, 2025, workshop "Modalities and Quantification in Reasoning" at Central European University.