The Generic Book

by Gregory N. Carlson, Francis Jeffry Pelletier

Overview

In an attempt to address the theoretical gap between linguistics and philosophy, a group of semanticists, calling itself the Generic Group, has worked to develop a common view of genericity. Their research has resulted in this book, which consists of a substantive introduction and eleven original articles on important aspects of the interpretation of generic expressions. The introduction provides a clear overview of the issues and synthesizes the major analytical approaches to them. Taken together, the papers that follow reflect the current state of the art in the semantics of generics, and afford insight into various generic phenomena.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226092911
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	08/01/1995
Series:	Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion Ser.
Edition description:	1
Pages:	474
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Gregory N. Carlson is professor of linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science at the University of Rochester. Francis Jeffry Pelletier is Canada Research Chair in cognitive science, professor of philosophy, and professor of linguistics at Simon Fraser University.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
1: Genericity: An Introduction
Manfred Krifka, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Gregory N. Carlson, Alice ter
Meulen, Gennaro Chierchia, Godehard Link.
2: Stage-Level and Individual-Level Predicates
Angelika Kratzer
3: Individual-Level Predicates as Inherent Generics
Gennaro Chierchia
4: Truth Conditions of Generic Sentences: Two Contrasting Views
Gregory N. Carlson
5: Focus and the Interpretation of Generic Sentences
Manfred Krifka
6: Indefinites, Adverbs of Quantification, and Focus Semantics
Mats Rooth
7: What Some Generic Sentences Mean
Nicholas Asher, Michael Morreau.
8: Semantic Constraints on Type-Shifting Anaphora
Alice ter Meulen
9: Generic Information and Dependent Generics
Godehard Link
10: The Semantics of the Common Noun Kind
Karina Wilkinson
11: Common Nouns: A Contrastive Analysis of Chinese and English
Manfred Krifka
12: The Marking of the Episodic/Generic Distinction in Tense-Aspect Systems
Osten Dahl
Bibliography of Recent Work on Genericity
Name Index
Language Index
Subject Index