In this paper, I utilise the growing literature on scientific modelling to investigate the nature of formal semantics from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Specifically, I incorporate the inferential framework proposed by Bueno and Colyvan (Nous 45(2): 345–374, 2011) in the philosophy of applied mathematics to offer an account of how formal semantics explains and models its data. This view produces a picture of formal semantic models as involving an embedded process of inference and representation applying indirectly to linguistic phenomena. The final aim of the paper is directed at proposing a novel account of the syntax–semantics interface while shedding light on empty categories, semantically null forms, underspecified content and compositionality as a whole.

中文翻译：

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形式语义学和应用数学：推论

在本文中，我利用越来越多的科学建模文献，从科学哲学的角度研究形式语义的本质。具体来说，我将 Bueno 和 Colyvan 提出的推理框架（Nous 45(2): 345–374, 2011）纳入应用数学哲学，以提供形式语义如何解释和建模其数据的说明。这种观点产生了形式语义模型的图景，因为它涉及间接应用于语言现象的推理和表示的嵌入式过程。这篇论文的最终目的是提出一种对句法-语义接口的新解释，同时阐明空类别、语义空形式、未指定内容和整体的组合性。