The radical account of bare plural generics

Nguyen, Anthony

doi:10.1007/s11098-019-01254-8

Cited by 19 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…For the purposes of this paper, we are content to simply assume that only Nguyen's (2020) and Sterken's (2015a) accounts can capture the positive data. We do not see this as significantly limiting the interest of our investigation here.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main difference between Sterken (2015a) and Nguyen (2020) lies in whether GEN is posited. Sterken (2015a) posits GEN.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Sterken's view captures the truth of (6) by allowing GEN to have the semantic value of a particular quantifier over ideal situations: This quantifier has the meaning of "all ideal." On the other hand, according to Nguyen (2020), generic sentences fail to express propositions. He does not posit GEN.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To summarize, the key difference between Sterken (2015a) and Nguyen (2020), then, is whether there is a semantically effective operator or not. Sterken posits GEN. Nguyen does not.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What’s positive and negative about generics: a constrained indexical approach

Lee

Nguyen

2021

Philos Stud

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Generics, which are often expressed using bare plurals (e.g., "Tigers are striped"), have received much attention from both philosophers and linguists. 1 But generics have proved resistant to systematic semantic theorizing. This is mainly because generics can be used to express propositions with radically different quantificational forces: that of universal quantifiers (e.g., "all"), modalized universal quantifiers (e.g., "all … can," "ideally, all," "under normal circumstances, all"), proportional quantifiers (e.g., "most," "many"), and quasi-existential quantifiers (e.g., "a few"). Nguyen (2020) calls this data The Variety Data, but we prefer to call it The Positive Data: 2The Positive Data (The Variety Data) 3,4 (1) [A few] mosquitoes transmit malaria. 51 For broad introductions to the literature on generics, see Krifka et al. (1995), Leslie (2016), and Sterken (2017). 2 In the absence of an explicitly supplied context, we will assume typical contexts. Bach (2002) and Bach (2005) have argued that in the absence of an explicitly provided context, speakers evaluate sentences by imagining a typical one. Some evidence that speakers can automatically supply a typical context is the felicity of some sentences containing context-dependent expressions despite the absence of any explicitly offered context. For example, "She left Bob" can be understood as meaning "Bob's female ex-partner left Bob" despite the lack of any explicitly offered context to help resolve the reference of "she." 3 Only the unbracketed material is overtly pronounced. The bracketed material indicates the quantificational force of what is asserted. 4 Here are sample lexical entries for the quantifiers in the positive data: ⟦"all"⟧ c = λF. λG.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main difference between Sterken (2015a) and Nguyen (2020) lies in whether GEN is posited. Sterken (2015a) posits GEN.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To summarize, the key difference between Sterken (2015a) and Nguyen (2020), then, is whether there is a semantically effective operator or not. Sterken posits GEN. Nguyen does not.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What’s positive and negative about generics: a constrained indexical approach

Lee

Nguyen

2021

Philos Stud

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“…2 2 Controversies include whether the quantifier is syntactically an adverb or determiner (Carlson 1989; Rooth, 1995), whether it is context‐sensitive (Sterken, 2015), whether it is contributed via pragmatic means (Cohen, 2012; Nguyen 2019), and whether it is semantically simple or not (Leslie, 2008; Liebesman, 2011; Sterken 2016). …”

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confidence: 99%

Generics and the metaphysics of kinds

Liebesman

Sterken

2021

Philosophy Compass

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Recent years have seen renewed interest in the semantics of generics. And a relatively mainstream view in this work is that the semantics of generics must appeal to kinds. But what are kinds? Can we learn anything about their nature by looking at how semantic theories of generics appeal to them? In this article, we overview recent work on the semantics of generics and consider their consequences for our understanding of the metaphysics of kinds.

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Normative generics: Against semantic polysemy

Hesni

2021

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy

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Generic sentences are sometimes characterized as normative or descriptive. Descriptive generics make generalized claims about things: dogs bark, birds fly, doughnuts have holes. Normative generics do something more complicated; they seem to communicate how things should be: boys don't cry, children are seen and not heard, friends don't let friends drive drunk. The latter set of sentences express something like the speaker's endorsement that the predicated terms match up with the kind terms. Sarah-Jane Leslie posits a semantic view of normative generics on which the subject term is polysemous between a normative and a descriptive reading. I argue that this cannot be right, and show how a Gricean implicature view can accommodate everyday normative generics in a way that Leslie's polysemous view cannot. An upshot of my argument is skepticism about drawing semantic conclusions from dual character concepts.

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The radical account of bare plural generics

Cited by 19 publications

References 49 publications

What’s positive and negative about generics: a constrained indexical approach

What’s positive and negative about generics: a constrained indexical approach

Generics and the metaphysics of kinds

Normative generics: Against semantic polysemy

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