Natural language meaning has properties of both cognitive representations and formal/mathematical structures. But it is not clear how they actually relate to one another. The central aim of this article is to show that properties of cognitive representations and formal/mathematical structures of natural language meaning, albeit apparently divergent, can be united, as far as the basic properties of semantic structures are concerned. Thus, this article will formulate the form of unified representations for semantic structures. With this goal, this article takes into account standard formal-semantic representations and also Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) representations on the one hand and semantic representations in different versions of Conceptual/Cognitive Semantics (Jackendoff’s, Langacker’s and Talmy’s approaches to Conceptual/Cognitive Semantics) and representations of Mental Spaces (Fauconnier’s approach) on the other hand. The rationale behind the selection of these approaches is that the representations of semantic structures under these approaches are all amenable to unification. It must be emphasized that showing that the representations of semantic structures under these approaches can be unified does not simply amount to unifying these theories/approaches in toto. Rather, it is to demonstrate that cognitive representations and formal/mathematical structures can be shown to be inter-translatable for at least some accounts of linguistic meaning.

中文翻译：

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走向语言意义的统一表示

自然语言意义具有认知表征和形式/数学结构的特性。但目前尚不清楚它们实际上是如何相互关联的。本文的中心目标是表明，就语义结构的基本属性而言，认知表征的属性和自然语言意义的形式/数学结构虽然明显不同，但可以统一起来。因此，本文将制定语义结构的统一表示形式。为了这个目标，本文一方面考虑了标准的形式语义表示，也考虑了话语表示理论 (DRT) 表示，以及不同版本的概念/认知语义（Jackendoff 的，另一方面，Langacker 和 Talmy 的概念/认知语义学方法）和心理空间的表征（Fauconnier 的方法）。选择这些方法背后的基本原理是这些方法下的语义结构表示都可以统一。必须强调的是，表明这些方法下语义结构的表示可以统一，并不简单地等同于将这些理论/方法统一起来。相反，它是为了证明认知表征和形式/数学结构可以被证明是可互译的，至少对于某些语言意义的解释。选择这些方法背后的基本原理是这些方法下的语义结构表示都可以统一。必须强调的是，表明这些方法下语义结构的表示可以统一，并不简单地等同于将这些理论/方法统一起来。相反，它是为了证明认知表征和形式/数学结构可以被证明是可互译的，至少对于某些语言意义的解释。选择这些方法背后的基本原理是这些方法下的语义结构表示都可以统一。必须强调的是，表明这些方法下语义结构的表示可以统一，并不简单地等同于将这些理论/方法统一起来。相反，它是为了证明认知表征和形式/数学结构可以被证明是可互译的，至少对于某些语言意义的解释。