Genericity (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics)

This book provides an up-to-date introduction to the study of generics and pursues the enterprise of the influential Generic Book edited by Gregory Carlson and Jeffry Pelletier, which was published in 1995. Genericity is a key notion in the study of human cognition as it reveals our capacity to organize our perceived reality into classes and to describe regularities. The generic can be expressed at the level of a word or phrase (ie the potato in The Irish economy became dependent upon the potato) or an entire sentence (eg in John smokes a cigar after dinner, the generic aspect is a property of the expression, rather than any single word or phrase within it). This book gathers new work from senior and young researchers to reconsider the notion of genericity, examining the distinct contributions made by the determiner phrase (eg the notions of kind/individual) and the verbal predicate (eg the notions of permanency, disposition, ability, habituality, and plurality). Finally, in connection with the whole sentence, the analytic/synthetic distinction is discussed as well as the notion of normality. The book will appeal to both students and scholars in linguistics, philosophy and cognitive science

Reference

Mari, Alda

BEYSSADE

DEL PRETE

Words, Language & Grammar

Oxford University Press

The Ruins Lesson: Meaning and Material in Western Culture

<p>Review\n“This extended study of the semantics of mood is rich with insight and empirical detail. Giannakidou and Mari have made an important contribution to the literature on the topic.” ― Paul Portner, Georgetown University\n“Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought undertakes a challenging task—to offer a unified analysis of a range of linguistic phenomena that belong to the domain of epistemic modality. Giannakidou and Mari offer an explanation for the interaction of modal and temporal categories. This book makes several theoretical and empirical contributions to the field, and the result is an important milestone in the literature on modality.” ― Anastasia Smirnova, San Francisco State University\n“Giannakidou and Mari’s book will be a valuable contribution to the formalization of mood and modality. The scholarship is perfectly sound, and the result is impressive. The main originality of the book is how it handles the various parameters at play, which is novel and stimulating.” ― Louis de Saussure, University of Neuchâtel\nCan language directly access what is true, or is the truth judgment affected by the subjective, perhaps even solipsistic, constructs of reality built by the speakers of that language? The construction of such subjective representations is known as veridicality, and in this book Anastasia Giannakidou and Alda Mari deftly address the interaction between truth and veridicality in the grammatical phenomena of mood choice: the indicative and subjunctive choice in the complements of modal expressions and propositional attitude verbs.<br />
Combining several strands of analysis—formal linguistic semantics, syntactic theory, modal logic, and philosophy of language—Giannakidou and Mari’s theory not only enriches the analysis of linguistic modality, but also offers a unified perspective of modals and propositional attitudes. Their synthesis covers mood, modality, and attitude verbs in Greek and Romance languages, while also offering broader applications for languages lacking systematic mood distinction, such as English. Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought promises to shape longstanding conversations in formal semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language, among other areas of linguistics.</p>

Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought: Mood, Modality, and Propositional Attitudes

Politics & Social Sciences

Giannakidou, Anastasia

Philosophy

University of Chicago Press

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