Normal Objects, Normal Worlds and the Meaning of Generic Sentences

Eckardt, Regine

Normal Objects, Normal Worlds and the Meaning of Generic Sentences

Dateien

Eckardt_0-396882.pdfGröße: 7.39 MBDownloads: 505

Datum

1999

Open Access-Veröffentlichung

Open Access Green

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Linguistik

Publikationstyp

Zeitschriftenartikel

Publikationsstatus

Published

Erschienen in

Journal of Semantics. 1999, 16(3), pp. 237-278. ISSN 0167-5133. eISSN 1477-4593. Available under: doi: 10.1093/jos/16.3.237

Zusammenfassung

It has sometimes been proposed that generic sentences make statements about prototypic members of a category. In this paper I will elaborate this view and develop an account where generic sentences express quantification about the normal exemplars in a category - here and in counterfactual worlds sufficiently similar to our own. Comparing the account to the currently most widespread analysis which views generic sentences as universal quantifications in carefully chosen best-possible worlds, we find that an analysis that is based on the choice of normal objects does better justice to the data in question than an analysis that relies on a choice of normal worlds alone. A further conceptual advantage of an explicit separation of (a) a choice of best exemplars and (b) a modal component of generic quantification consists in the fact that it highlights that different generic sentences can rely on different kinds of choice of best exemplar. Comparing their logical behaviour, I will demonstrate that we should at least distinguish between normal-generic sentences and ideal-generic sentences. Finally, the paper proves that the account I propose is a modal variant of some recent purely extensional default logics, developed in AL.

Fachgebiet (DDC)

400 Sprachwissenschaft, Linguistik

Zitieren

ISO 690

ECKARDT, Regine, 1999. Normal Objects, Normal Worlds and the Meaning of Generic Sentences. In: Journal of Semantics. 1999, 16(3), pp. 237-278. ISSN 0167-5133. eISSN 1477-4593. Available under: doi: 10.1093/jos/16.3.237

BibTex

@article{Eckardt1999Norma-37778,
  year={1999},
  doi={10.1093/jos/16.3.237},
  title={Normal Objects, Normal Worlds and the Meaning of Generic Sentences},
  number={3},
  volume={16},
  issn={0167-5133},
  journal={Journal of Semantics},
  pages={237--278},
  author={Eckardt, Regine}
}

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