Generic terms and generic sentences

Carlson, Greg N.

doi:10.1007/bf00278382

Cited by 74 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Crucially, SLPs in the NOM-case retain their SLP status and ILPs in the INST-case retain their ILP status. We obtain the same results with respect to other diagnostic tests for the ILP-SLP distinction proposed by Carlson (1977Carlson ( , 1982, to the extent that they are applicable to Russian. (8a) shows that morphological case is insufficient as a predictor of the acceptability of ILPs as depictives.…”

Section: Cases As Overt Exponents Of the Il And Sl Status Of Predisupporting

confidence: 77%

The Semantics of Case in Russian Secondary Predication

Filip¹

2001

SALT

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Secondary predicates in Russian are in the instrumental case (INST), or they agree in case (AGR) with their controlling argument in the main clause. The selection of case morphology depends on a complex interaction of a number of factors. 1 Here, the focus is only on semantic factors that have direct theoretical implications for the individual-level predicate (ILP) vs. stage-level predicate (SLP) distinction. I analyze the semantic constraints on ILPs used as depictives, situation anchors, and restrictors in sentences expressing quantification over situations, that is, in contexts in which they appear to have SL interpretations. I will advance three main claims: First, ILPs in Russian do not here undergo a shift into SLPs, but rather retain their inherent IL status. Second, case morphology on Russian predicates does not encode the IL and SL status of predicates. Third, the ILP-SLP distinction cannot be temporally-based, as Carlson (1977) originally proposed. My exploration of this topic involves the interactions among morphological case, the situation-related structure and the quantificational structure of sentences.

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Section: Cases As Overt Exponents Of the Il And Sl Status Of Predisupporting

confidence: 77%

The Semantics of Case in Russian Secondary Predication

Filip¹

2001

SALT

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“…In addition, tense and aspect may affect the interpretation of bare plural subjects (e.g. Carlson 1977Carlson , 1982. Verbs with past tense or perfective aspect are more likely to have an episodic reading than verbs with present tense or imperfective aspect.…”

Section: Tense and Aspectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where to place inaccessible subjects in Dutch: The role of definiteness and animacy

Vogels

Bergen²

2017

Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory

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Cross-linguistically, both subjects and topical information tend to be placed at the beginning of a sentence. Subjects are generally highly topical, causing both tendencies to converge on the same word order. However, subjects that lack prototypical topic properties may give rise to an incongruence between the preference to start a sentence with the subject and the preference to start a sentence with the most accessible information. We present a corpus study in which we investigate in what syntactic position (preverbal or postverbal) such low-accessible subjects are typically found in Dutch natural language. We examine the effects of both discourse accessibility (definiteness) and inherent accessibility (animacy). Our results show that definiteness and animacy interact in determining subject position in Dutch. Non-referential (bare) subjects are less likely to occur in preverbal position than definite subjects, and this tendency is reinforced when the subject is inanimate. This suggests that these two properties that make the subject less accessible together can 'gang up' against the subject first preference. The results support a probabilistic multifactorial account of syntactic variation.

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“…Elles sont également inaptes à commenter la possibilité pour le de figurer aux côtés de prédicats événementiels (Carslon, 1982), où l'article ne renvoie pas à une caractéristique intrinsèque de N. Les thèses qui considèrent « le N générique comme nom propre d'espèce » (Kleiber, 1989), développées entre autres par Carlson (1982), Van Langendonck (1980), Krifka (1995) ou encore Corblin (1987), sont bénéfiques, elles, en ce qu'elles éclairent à leur tour la nuance entre les syntagmes le N et un N, mais elles achoppent également sur la différence sémantique entre les énoncés en le N et les N en lecture universelle. Platteau (1980) et Galmiche (1985, qui motivent la dissemblance entre un N et le N par le critère du regard interne et externe porté sur la classe, échouent de même 4 .…”

Section: Bilan Des Derniers Travaux Sur Le N Les N Et Un N En Lecturunclassified

Des N et du N sujets : des généricités toujours refusées ?

Roig¹

2014

Travaux De Linguistique

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RésuméSi la possibilité pour les articles le, les et un de figurer en position syntaxique de sujet en lecture universelle est unanimement admise, elle semble moins évidente pour les formes des et du. Dans cette contribution, il est fait état des modalités dans lesquelles des N puis du N peuvent être les sujets d'énoncés génériques. Qu'ils précèdent un prédicat caractérisant individual-level ou stage-level, ou encore un prédicat d'espèce, les SN en des N et du N peuvent en effet donner lieu à une lecture universelle, moyennant quelques conditions et leur inscription dans un contexte particulier, généralement polémique, toujours argumentatif. La généricité des énoncés ouverts par ces SN, cependant, bien qu'elle soit proche en apparence de celle rendue par le N, les N et un N, se singularise par la lecture thétique qui est associée aux articles des et du. Le caractère athématique de ces énoncés est par ailleurs une donnée souvent oubliée, oubli duquel procèdent les fortes divergences des grammairiens et linguistes quant à la question de la recevabilité des énoncés génériques en des et du.Mots clés : article indéfini, article partitif, généricité, universalité, lecture thétique. AbstractAlthough it has been unanimously accepted that the articles "le", "les" and "un" can fill the syntactic position of subject with a universal interpretation, such a statement is less obvious with the forms "des" and "du". In this paper, we examine the cases in which "des N" and "du N" can be subjects in generic sentences. Indeed, given certain conditions and a particular context -usually controversial, always argumentative -the "des N" and "du N" NPs can lead to a universal interpretation, when placed before a characterizing predicate of individual-level or stage-level types, or before a kind-level predicate. However, despite an apparent similarity, a difference can be observed between the genericity of the utterances starting with these NPs, and that of the utterances introduced by "le N", "les N" and "un N", on account of the thetic interpretation which is linked with the articles "des" and "du". Besides, the athematic character of these utterances has often been omitted, resulting in strong diverging interpretations among grammarians and linguists with regards to the acceptability of generic utterances in "des" and "du".

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Generic terms and generic sentences

Cited by 74 publications

References 45 publications

The Semantics of Case in Russian Secondary Predication

The Semantics of Case in Russian Secondary Predication

Where to place inaccessible subjects in Dutch: The role of definiteness and animacy

Des N et du N sujets : des généricités toujours refusées ?

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