Think Generic!: The Meaning and Use of Generic Sentences (Dissertations in Linguistics) - Softcover

Cohen, Ariel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575862085 ISBN 13: 9781575862088

Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Inf, 1999

Synopsis

Our knowledge about the world is often expressed by generic sentences, yet their meanings are far from clear. This book provides answers to central problems concerning generics: what do they mean? Which factors affect their interpretation? How can one reason with generics? Cohen proposes that the meanings of generics are probability judgments, and shows how this view accounts for many of their puzzling properties, including lawlikeness. Generics are evaluated with respect to alternatives. Cohen argues that alternatives are induced by the kind as well as by the predicated property, and thus provides a uniform account of the varied interpretations of generics. He studies the formal properties of alternatives and provides a compositional account of their derivation by focus and presupposition. Cohen uses his semantics of generics to provide a formal characterization of adequate default reasoning, and proves some desirable results of this formalism.

About this title

Book Description

This book provides a new approach to central problems concerning generic sentences. Cohen proposes that the meanings of generics are probability judgments, and shows how this view accounts for many of their puzzling properties, including lawlikeness. He uses his semantics of generics to provide a formal characterization of adequate default reasoning.

Edition details

• Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Inf
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1575862085
• ISBN 13: 9781575862088
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224