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Genericity: An introduction
... A seção investiga os sintagmas nominais em sentenças genéricas em Rikbaktsa. A literatura (Krifka et al., 1995) distingue a genericidade do nome da genericidade sentencial. O teste para a genericidade no nome é sua combinação com os predicados de espécie, tópico da primeira sub-seção. ...
... Como sabemos, generalizações são sentenças que afirmam padrões de normalidade (Krifka et al., 1995). (11) Gen[s;x;y] (s é situação de comer, x é anta; y é fruta) (x come y em s) "Em geral, uma situação em que há anta e fruta é uma situação que se desenvolve na anta comer a fruta." ...
... Indivíduos ordinários são esparramados no tempo, mas ocupam um único lugar num momento do tempo. Assim, Carlson distingue espécies, os indivíduos ordinários ("individual level objects", em Krifka et al.,1995) e os estágios de um indivíduo, que são instâncias espaço-temporais desses indivíduos. Um indivíduo ordinário como o sol, a lua ou qualquer um de nós, tem propriedades que perduram no tempo e outras que ocorrem em um dado momento, um estágio em nossas vidas. ...
O artigo investiga, de maneira exploratória, a semântica dos sintagmas nominais em sentenças genéricas na língua Rikbaktsa (Macro-Jê) como parte do projeto “(In)definitude da perspectiva das línguas sub representadas”. A língua Rikbaktsa é marcada para número, não possui artigos e a ordem canônica é Sujeito-Objeto-Verbo, no qual o verbo é uma unidade autônoma. Os dados analisados são originais e foram coletados através de diferentes metodologias. Além da documentação de uma língua em perigo, o artigo propõe uma descrição morfo-semântica das sentenças genéricas que, nesta língua, são morfologicamente estativas. A estrutura ativa é episódica. Os sintagmas nus, singular e plural são intercambiáveis, mas nem sempre. Para explicar a distribuição e interpretação desses sintagmas propomos que o singular nu denota um indivíduo singular, que pode ser de diferentes tipos – indivíduos genéricos (espécie) ou ordinários –, já o plural é sempre uma soma. O artigo contribui com uma perspectiva inovadora para o fenômeno que a literatura chama de “neutro para número”; argumenta que a hipótese apresentada explica melhor os fatos dessa língua do que a hipótese da neutralidade.Palavras-chave: Rikbaktsa (Macro-Jê). Genéricos. Morfo-semântica. Neutralidade para número. Indivíduo genérico. Coleta de dados.
... Following the terminology of Bunt (1985), tea can undergo the Universal Sorter. This reading is prominently discussed in relation to mass nouns, but it is also available to count nouns, e.g., this whale can mean 'this kind of whale' (Carlson, 1980;Krifka et al., 1995). ...
... Fortunately, there is an independent difference between overt and covert sorting which accounts for the felicity of (5). Specifically, the output of the covert Sorter is restricted to well-established kinds, defined by Krifka (1987) as kinds which are well established in the shared knowledge of the interlocutors (Krifka et al., 1995). 9 This is exemplified in (6) with the sorted wine, which can describe the well-established kind denoted by Claret, but not the ad hoc kind denoted by cheap wine. ...
This article is about the cross-linguistic universality of the so-called Universal Sorter, where a noun N means ‘kind of N’. We discuss two restrictions in two Slavic languages which are absent from English, pertaining to perfective verbs and numerically modified count nouns. We establish, first with introspective judgments (for Czech) and then experimentally (for Slovak), that both restrictions are present in a way which supports our analysis of the first restriction as stemming from Slavic, unlike English, having perfective verbs which force a completive reading of an incremental theme.
... 8 Leonetti (2019) suggests a broader view of WDs, which includes VPs, such as those in (2c) and (3c): mangiare {il pesce / i cioccolatini} 'to eat {fish / chocolates} ', 7 Other scholars, such as Gerards and Stark (2022), associate IDs in Italian, along with analogous constructions in Old Spanish and Francoprovençal, with other weakly referential definites. Specifically, they argue that such constructions convey representative object interpretations (as in In Alaska we filmed the grizzly; Krifka et al. 1995: 78, (124f)) available in what is called a kind-oriented mode of talk (Krifka et al. 1995). Typically, however, this type of representative object interpretation is associated with morphologically singular definite DPs with a presuppositional reading (e.g., the grizzly). ...
... In (17), the main verb inventare is a k-level predicate and the definite object is interpreted as denoting the (sub)kind le patate fritte. Interestingly, this type of klevel predicates do not allow upward entailments (Laca 1990;Krifka et al. 1995). By contrast, in (18) the main verb mangiare is a s-level predicate with a definite DP object, which is modified by a PP, which refers to a subkind of potatoes. ...
This paper examines indefinite interpretations associated with morphologically definite articles in Italian, such as Ha comprato {i tulipani / l’olio} (‘She bought (the) tulips / (the) oil’), which allow both a default definite reading and an indefinite interpretation. The paper addresses two main research questions: (i) what grammatical conditions allow indefinite definites in Italian?, and (ii) why do only Italo-Romance varieties, and not other Romance languages, allow the presence of indefinite definites (in addition to bare nouns, the so called “partitive article” and even a bare di)? The primary contribution of the paper is to show that the indefinite reading of definite internal arguments in Italian cannot be derived from a weak definite approach, from kind denotation, or from an operation of derived kind predication. Instead, we argue that internal definite (plural and mass) arguments can be interpreted as conveying an indefinite reading, as long as the event in which they participate denotes incremental homogeneity (Landman and Rothstein 2010, 2012a, 2012b). This hypothesis is supported by the productivity of indefinite definites in habitual (and iterative) contexts, which are incrementally homogeneous by definition; and their compatibility with per ‘for’ (and ogni ‘every’ N) temporal modifiers. Concerning the cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal puzzle, the paper highlights that the use of indefinite definites for the expression of weak indefiniteness reveals the bidirectional influence between dialectal substrata and the national language, giving prominence to the role of competing grammars in speakers of informal Italian.
... Let us begin with the first question. Although the semantic interpretation of GEN is contentious, the consensus among philosophers of language and linguists is that GEN is a two-place operator that functions like adverbs of quantification (Krifka et al., 1995;Leslie, 2008;Leslie & Lerner, 2022;Schubert & Pelletier, 1987). Adverbs of quantification include "generally", "typically", "usually", "always", "sometimes" and so on. ...
... Some contain a singular indefinite noun (e.g., "A madrigal is polyphonic"). In this paper, we will focus on bare plurals. 2 For example, seeSchubert & Pelletier (1987, 1989,Krifka et al. (1995),Asher & Morreau (1995),Pelletier & Asher (1997),Eckardt (1999),Cohen (1996Cohen ( , 1999aCohen ( , 1999bCohen ( , 2001aCohen ( , 2001bCohen ( , 2004,Leslie (2007Leslie ( , 2008Leslie ( , 2012Leslie ( , 2014,Nickel (2009Nickel ( , 2016,Sterken (2015a, b),Tessler & Goodman (2019), van Rooij & Schulz (2020), andLee & Nguyen (2022).Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
Any adequate semantics of generic sentences (e.g., “Philosophers evaluate arguments”) must accommodate both what we call the positive data and the negative data. The positive data consists of observations about what felicitous interpretations of generic sentences are available. Conversely, the negative data consists of observations about which interpretations of generic sentences are unavailable. Nguyen argues that only his pragmatic neo-Gricean account and Sterken’s indexical account can accommodate the positive data. Lee and Nguyen have advanced the debate by arguing that the negative data is a problem for both Nguyen’s and Sterken’s accounts; these two accounts seem to incorrectly predict that generics have felicitous interpretations that they, in fact, fail to have. In this paper, we advance this debate—and, more generally, the task of developing an adequate formal semantics of generics—by arguing that a neglected class of theories are compatible with both the positive data and the negative data. Specifically, we argue that treating the generic operator GEN as a relative gradable expression with a positive, upper- and lower- bounded scale helps accommodate the positive data and the negative data. While developing this view, we show how several previously developed semantics of generics may systematically accommodate both sets of data. One broad contribution of this paper is to show that, while they generate important desiderata, the positive and negative data cannot determine a unique semantics for generics. A further contribution of this paper is to highlight previously unnoted ways in which degree semantics may inform semantic theories of generic meaning.
... predicates denoting characterizing properties), bare nouns have a generic interpretation, while as subjects of stage-level predicates (i.e. predicates denoting transient properties), they are interpreted as Entity-referring (Carlson, 1977;Kratzer, 1988;Krifka et al., 1995). ...
Aquest estudi explora els noms escuets xinesos, centrant-se específicament en la seva característica de neutralitat numèrica. Com a cas d’estudi, investiguem el nom escuet més utilitzat per expressar la referència humana general, rén ‘persona, persones’. Basant-nos en una anàlisi d’un corpus paral·lel xinès-anglès, la recerca examina les propietats a nivell de frase i a nivell de discurs que influeixen en la interpretació de significats singulars vs. plurals inclosos en el nom escuet font quan es tradueix a un idioma com l’anglès, que marca gramaticalment el número. L’anàlisi revela la relació multifactorial entre la marca de número en anglès i l’estructura semàntica (en termes de partició i genericitat), així com les propietats pragmàtiques (relacionades amb l’estat del discurs) del nom escuet font. Es demostra que certs contexts exclouen inequívocament una interpretació singular o plural, especialment en afirmacions genèric-partitives i en oracions que introdueixen línies de discurs directe.
... A generic NP makes "reference to a kind -a genus" (Krifka et al., 1995), not a specific object or entity. For example, the following sentences have a generic interpretation in that not a specific hummingbird is being referenced, but the species in general, despite the use of certain determiners, such as the definite or indefinite articles: Lastly, the flowchart for identifying copulas by Mustaffa (2022) in Figure 1 is taken as a guideline for this study in differentiating copular and noncopular elements. ...
The limited research in Malay nonverbal predication has predominantly revolved around the two attested copulas 'ialah' and 'adalah'. In fact, there is another grammatical element that appears to serve as a copula to the constituents flanking it, namely 'itu'. Seeing that this distal demonstrative pronoun has never received any attention as a copula in the linguistics literature before, this study investigates the copular use of 'itu' in Malay, focusing on its morphological, syntactic, semantic, and information-structural features within nonverbal clauses. Employing a qualitative approach through the descriptive method in linguistics, the analysis encompasses a range of nonverbal clauses taken from mainstream Malay news portals online to reveal that 'itu' exhibits many copula-like characteristics. Constituent analysis was used to identify the linguistic features of the subject, the predicate, and most importantly 'itu'. Only sentences with a generic subject and a predicate of the grammatical categories NP, AP, or PP were chosen so as to ensure that 'itu' was not associated with the subject and the sentence was nonverbal. Morphologically, itu can combine with 3rd person 'ia' to form a clarifying expression comparable to the embedded copular clause “which is…” in English. Syntactically, 'itu' has the same distribution and behaviour as the other copulas in Malay. Semantically, 'itu' is vacuous, making no contribution to the overall meaning of the clause. Information-structurally, 'itu' does not carry any roles associated with the topic or focus. This research enriches our understanding of Malay linguistic structures, particularly in the underexplored area of nonverbal predication in Malay. Additionally, it provides historical linguists with insights into the evolution of pronominal elements into copulas as it happens. The findings have broader implications for the study of syntactic evolution and typological studies in Austronesian languages and beyond
... BNs, for instance, can be used anaphorically to refer to familiar discourse referents in a narrative, as in (19) The availability of kind-readings of Kaingang BNs, or lack thereof, is still an open question. So far, I haven't identified any strictly kind-level predicate, such as be ex-tinct, invent, or discover, which would provide a conclusive test for kind-referring expressions (Krifka et al. 1995). This subsection has discussed other readings of Kaingang BNs in order to illustrate the full range of their attested interpretations. ...
This paper addresses the scope behavior of bare nouns (BNs) in Kaingang (Jê, Brazil) and its relevance to the study of semantic variation. I show that Kaingang BNs exhibit variable scope in relation to other clause-mate operators, such as negation, intensional verbs, if-clauses, universal quantifiers, and frequency adverbials. Adopting a type-shifting framework (Chierchia in Topics in the syntax and semantics of infinitives and gerunds. PhD diss., University of Massachusetts, 1984; Events and grammar, pp. 53–103, 1998a; Natural Language Semantics 6: 339–405, 1998b; Partee in Studies in discourse representation theory and the theory of generalized quantifiers, pp. 115–144, 1986; Krifka in Proceedings of SALT 13, pp. 180–203, 2003; Dayal in Linguistics and Philosophy, 27: 393–450, 2004, among others), I analyze Kaingang indefinite BNs as predicate NPs mapped into arguments via a choice function (CF) that gets existentially closed at any level in the clause, à la English indefinites under Reinhart’s (Linguistics and Philosophy, 20(4): 335–397, 1997; Interface strategies: Optimal and costly computations, 2006) analysis. I also argue that the difference in scope properties across languages between variable-scope and narrowest-scope BNs is linked to the quantized/cumulative opposition of the predicates they express: the former are quantized predicates, while the latter are cumulative. I then claim that variable-scope and narrowest-scope BNs are created by two distinct type-shifters: the former by CF and the later by Krifka’s ∃ operator (Krifka in Proceedings of SALT 13, pp. 180–203, 2003). In this way, I propose that both operators are sensitive to the quantized/cumulative opposition and model this as conditioned by a binary semantic feature, namely [±quantizedness], which checks the (non-)quantized properties of the predicates that undergo type-shifting. The CF type-shifter is [+quant], and thus defined only for quantized predicates, while Krifka’s ∃ type-shifter is [−quant], selecting only non-quantized ones. This analysis is shown to correctly predict the variation in scope properties of BNs across languages.
... The generic statement (1) expresses a characteristic (giving vaginal birth) as a group categorization (women) and few people would argue the truthfulness of the statement. A key characteristic of generics is that they have a tolerance to exceptions (Krifka et al., 1995). In other words, they are difficult to prove false. ...
This paper explores the capacity of singular noun phrases (NPs) to express genericity in Norwegian, examining how definite, indefinite, and bare singular forms map onto generic meanings. A timed acceptability judgment task was used to investigate how each form correlates with generic expressions, delving into the subtleties of their usage in native language. Thirty-three Norwegian native speakers completed the study. Our results indicate that all three NP forms can convey some type of generic meaning, but there are preferences in their application. The definite singular is well-suited for kind and characterizing generics, whereas the indefinite singular, though less favored, is still acceptable in characterizing and type-denoting contexts. The bare singular shows a strong inclination toward type-denoting meanings, possibly due to its intrinsic emphasis on types over individuals. We discuss the multifunctionality of Norwegian singular NPs and the implications of individual variation among native speakers for learners of Norwegian.
This chapter critically examines the prevailing understanding of grouphood within the context of genocide law, highlighting the challenges and shortcomings of current interpretations. A thorough critique of the increasingly popular perpetrator-based subjectivity in constructing the four groups, particularly among legal scholars, is offered. By revisiting the concept of grouphood from historical, teleological, and victimological perspectives, the chapter aims to illuminate its original conceptualization by the drafters, its interpretation by international lawyers at the time, and its evolution in State practice prior to the 1990s. Through a contextual analysis of the first significant international criminal trial on genocide, the case against Jean-Paul Akayesu at the ICTR, core criticisms of the so-called ‘objective’ interpretation of the four groups are reassessed, the ‘permanent and stable’ formula is reconstructed, and the notion of involuntariness in defining protected grouphood is explored.
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