From kinds to plural reference: essays on the meaning of generics

Thesis

In this thesis, I present a range of arguments in support of the hypothesis that generic bare plural noun phrases in English – those which appear in sentences such as ‘Ravens are black’ or ‘Dodos are extinct’ – should be analysed as covert definite descriptions.

In Chapter 1, I introduce the topic of generics and provide a critical summary of the extant semantic theories. I propose a novel way of characterising the phenomenon of genericity as the belief that a sentence is true in virtue of a state of affairs which is stable over time.

In Chapter 2, I present novel data concerning the availability of collective and distributive readings of generics. These ambiguities are paralleled by the availability of collective and distributive readings for non-generic plurals. I show that extant theories cannot explain the availability of both readings and argue that this evidence weighs heavily in favour of a plural reference theory of generics.

In Chapter 3, I present further linguistic parallels between generics and plural definite descriptions and introduce a novel compositional semantic theory which analyses generic bare plurals as covert definite descriptions. I give a lexical entry for a null determiner and show how this predicts both the differences and similarities in the meanings of generic bare plurals and plural definite descriptions.

Chapter 4 deals with the law-likeness of generics, which seems to present a challenge for my plural reference theory. I present a puzzle concerning the law-like interpretation of generics and show that generics with a temporal restriction wholly located in the past elicit diminished intuitions of law-likeness. I resolve this puzzle by proposing a novel truthmaker semantics for plural predication which explains the law-likeness of generics in terms of the different ways that they can be made true.

In Chapter 5, I address Sarah-Jane Leslie’s arguments that generics express a default mode of generalisation. I argue that Leslie’s approach does not represent a genuine alternative to semantic theories of generics, since it ignores the non-semantic factors that affect speakers’ judgments of the truth values of generics and, as a result, overfits the data. I present a reconceptualised version of Leslie’s theory as a theory of how heuristics affect our judgements of the truth values of generics.

Authors: Ralston, T

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-vyk0bdgmg
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: plural reference; truthmaker semantics; kind terms; non-maximality; heuristics; generics; homogeneity; plural definite descriptions
• Subjects: Philosophy; Linguistics; Semantics