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Generics and Conceptualizations

초록/요약

Generics have been studied vigorously over the past few decades, mostly by formal linguists and philosophers. As is well known, there are two representative formal approaches toward generics: majority-based and normalcy-based approaches. Both approaches have been met with criticism but continue to undergo revisions. In contrast, Leslie (2007a,2007b; 2008; 2012; 2017) proposes a cognition-based approach arguing against the majority- and normalcy-based approaches. She proposes that generics express our most primitive and fundamental generalizations and are non-quantificational. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to propose genericity as a semantic, pragmatic, and even cognitive phenomenon, arguing that generics should be accounted for through cognitive conceptualizations. It will also be proposed that the generic operator is a quasi-universal quantifier, in contrast to both the formal and cognitive approaches. This position will be supported by experimental results.

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