Speaker: Søren Knudstorp (ILLC, University of Amsterdam)
Date and Time: Thursday, February 19th 2026, 16:30-18:00
Venue: ILLC Seminar Room F1.15, Science Park 107 and online.
Title: Truthmakers and Information States: Inclusion, Containment, Duality
Abstract. I highlight points of contact between truthmaker semantics and information semantics as studied in the tradition of inquisitive and team semantics, such as Aloni’s (2022) BSML. First, I show how to obtain a sound and complete semantics for Angell’s (1977) Analytic Containment by tweaking the semantics of BSML. This also achieves an information semantics complete for replete truthmaker entailment. Next, I present a full and faithful translation of BSML, inquisitive logic, dependence logic, and other propositional team logics into a modal logic. This modal logic can be taken to be that of van Benthem’s (2019) translation of truthmaker semantics [cf. SBK (2023)], thereby enabling comparison of the two traditions within a common framework. Lastly, if time permits, I note further points of comparison, including (i) regular truthmaker propositions vs. meanings in BSML, (ii) conjunctive vs. disjunctive states, and (iii) potential benefits of combining the traditions through sets of truthmakers (this is joint work in progress with Robert van Rooij).