b. 1941
Richmond Thomason is an American logician and philosopher of language at the University of Michigan, known for his foundational work in intensional logic, tense logic, and formal semantics. He has made significant contributions to the logical analysis of natural language, particularly in the areas of modality, conditionals, and the semantics of temporal and deontic expressions. His work bridges formal logic and linguistic theory, influencing both philosophy and computational linguistics.
Developed Thomason's stalnaker-thomason conditional logic and possible-worlds semantics for conditionals
Pioneered work in indeterministic tense logic and branching-time semantics
Co-developed the Montague-Thomason framework extending Montague grammar
Contributed to deontic logic and the formal analysis of obligation and permission
Influential work on context-dependence and the semantics of indexicals in natural language