!"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) % of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi * Introduction ALDA MARI, CLAIRE BEYSSADE, AND FABIO DEL PRETE Overview of the introduction +e publication of the seminal collectivework!eGeneric Book (Carlson andPelletier %!!)) gave rise to a ,ourishing research program. A principal contribution of !e Generic Book was the establishment of a uni-ed terminology that paved the way for detailed and speci-c studies, the results of which are intended to be cumulative. Since then, much of the research has focused on syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic issues, and researchers have made important advances within these -elds as well as at their interfaces. +e growing interest in genericity and subsequent development of new analyses have been nourished by a synergy between three areas of study. First, the empirical range of facts pertaining to genericity has widened impressively. During the last decade, much work has been conducted on various languages that are typologically remote from English, such as the Romance languages, Creole languages, Hindi, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. Second, developments in key areas of theoretical linguistics and related -elds have contributed to the understanding of old and new facts pertaining to genericity.+ese areas include logics of conditionals and vagueness, modeling of modalities, and algebraic approaches to plurality. Finally, new theoretical tools in lexical semantics, type theory, and information theory have made it possible to model important issues that arise at the interface between the lexicon, the syntax, and the semantics of generic expressions. Interaction between these areas of research has brought about questions as to what might be the sources of genericity itself. While the theory at the time of !e Generic Book relied heavily on the contribution of a hidden operator GEN (-rst introduced in Farkas and Sugioka %!#.), as a replacement for the unitary Carlsonian operator Gn (Carlson %!""b), subsequent research has tried to individuate the sources of the generic interpretation in overt material in generically interpreted sentences. +ese !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi ( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete developments in formal semantics and pragmatics echo recent -ndings in cognitive science, which seem to favor theories of generics as primarily non-quanti-cational (see Leslie ($$"). Linguistic research on generics has developed in three primary directions. Some authors have focused on the generic interpretation of the subject DP. +is research has mostly concentrated on the notion of kind and its possible expression in natural languages. Other authors locate the sources of genericity in the VP. And a third group, starting from the assumption that genericity is a feature of the sentence rather than one of its components, have focused on the variety of generic readings of generic sentences. +is introduction is organized in three parts that follow these lines of research. +e -rst part focuses on the syntactic structure and compositional interpretation of DPs, and frames the ontological issues related to reference to kinds in this context. What is the role of DPs in generic sentences, and what is the proper contribution of determiners and nouns to generic interpretation? To account for the variety of types of noun phraseswhich refer to kinds across languages (singular and plural bare nouns, as well as singular and plural de-nite noun phrases), it is necessary to precisely describe the ontology of the domain of reference, the denotation of singular and plural nouns, and the contribution of de-nite determiners and of the plural morpheme. +is part thus addresses a series of ontological issues relevant to the analysis of natural language: in order to account for linguistic data,mustwe postulate the existence of kinds, viewed as a type of entities, distinguished from particulars or tokens?What is the relationship between kinds and sets of entities, between kinds and properties, between kinds and sets of properties? +ere is a rich literature on these topics in philosophy, but our aim in this -rst part is not to propose an overview of the philosophical debate. For instance, when we ask whether non-ordinary individuals such as kinds exist, we wish to investigate whether natural language semantics needs to postulate the existence of entities such as kinds in order to achieve empirical adequacy, and what type of expressions (and in what languages) denote such entities. +e second part is comprised of three sections which are dedicated respectively to the stage-level/individual-level distinction, to the contribution of unboundedness and plurality, and to the dispositional reading of generic sentences. +e questions addressed in this part pertain to the relationship between genericity, habituality, abilities, and dispositions. We survey various accounts of these notions and contrast genericity viewed as the repetition of events across relevant situations with genericity as an explicative principle for the manifestation of properties. We compare the view that ILPs are context-independentwith the view that considers them asmaximal sums of their manifestations. Likewise we explore the view of habituality as repetitions of events, as opposed to abilities as explicative behaviors. +e roles of aspect and tense are taken into account in the discussion of these notions. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) . of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction . +e third part examines the type of generic sentences, opposing analytic vs synthetic judgments, and raises the question of the notion of normality. It comprises two sections. +e -rst section addresses the issue of the linguistic manifestation of the analytic/synthetic distinction and investigates the sources of the available interpretations for inde-nite generic sentences, bare plurals, and de-nite plural generics. It starts from the old assumption that inde-nite singular generics are used to express analytic statements, and questions both the descriptive and theoretical well-foundedness of this claim. It thus considers whether the analytic/synthetic distinction plays a role in natural language semantics, and when this is recognized to be the case, asks why certain linguistic forms are preferred for expressing certain types of judgment. +e second section is dedicated to the discussion of the notion of normality, comparing the view of normality as a statistical fact and the view of normality as a normative one. !.! Genericity and the DP Traditionally, generic sentences have been thought of as falling into two categories: (i) those sentences in which genericity comes from theDP (what Krifka et al. %!!) called reference to a kind), as in (%a) and (%b), and (ii) those sentences in which genericity comes as a feature of the whole sentence (called characterizing sentences in Krifka et al. %!!)) as in ((). In (%a) the DP the potato does not refer to a particular potato, but to a type of vegetable, the kind Potato.+e same holds for the DP potatoes in (%b), which does not refer to a particular set of potatoes, but rather to potatoes as a kind. (%a) and (%b) share the property of expressing claims about kinds. +us both DPs are said to be kindreferring DPs. +e case is di/erent in ((): the sentence does not report a particular event, but instead describes a habit (what John usually does a0er dinner), a kind of generalization over events. Contra to Krifka et al. who assume that in (() genericity is a feature of the whole sentence, we assume that genericity comes from the VP. (%) a. +e potato was -rst cultivated in South America. b. Potatoes were -rst cultivated in South America. (() John smokes a cigar a0er dinner. As noted by Krifka et al., both phenomena can occur simultaneously, as in (.). (.) a. Potatoes are served whole or mashed as a cooked vegetable. b. +e potato is highly digestible. +e-rst part of this introduction focuses on kind-referringDPs, addressing twomajor topics: !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi ' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete (i) What are the linguistic forms that can be used to refer to kinds across languages and what are the conditions governing their uses as well as the subtle semantic di/erences that they convey? While in English bare plurals and singular definite DPs may be kind-referring, in other languages, bare singulars or plural de-nite DPs also seem to be appropriate for referring to kinds. (ii) How can we account for the semantic computation of kind-referring DPs and what are the consequences of assuming kind reference into the ontology of natural language? To answer these questions, we -rst consider English bare plurals and begin with a presentation of two seminal studies about kinds, namely Carlson (%!""b) and Chierchia (%!!#). +ese studies have shown that English bare plurals may be analyzed as referring to kinds in all of their uses. Carlson's proposal is based on a series of contrasts between bare plurals and inde-nites in English. Chierchia has shown how to integrate Carlson's proposals within a formal framework which uses lattice structures (to account for plurality), operators, and type-shi0ing rules (to establish a link between kinds and properties). Sections %.%.( and %.%.. present two other proposals, developed contra Carlson and Chierchia, according to which English bare plurals refer directly to kinds: (i) the ambiguity hypothesis, according to which bare plurals are ambiguous between an inde-nite and a generic interpretation and (ii) the property denotation hypothesis, based on the idea that bare plurals denote properties and may be incorporated into the VP. We present arguments for and against each of these proposals. In the last part, we consider DPs other than English bare plurals which are kind-referring, and examine data from a multitude of languages, in particular Romance languages and languages without determiners such as Hindi, whichmust be accounted for. Initially, investigations into kind-reference were primarily concerned with English bare plurals, and to a lesser extent English de-nite singulars. However it can be shown that most, if not all, DPs can be interpreted as kind-referring given the appropriate context, and thus we explore the source of genericity in DPs. In the last section, we assume that there is no generic determiner, but that the source of genericity in the nominal domain is anchored in the noun itself, which is ambiguous and may describe a property of kind rather than a property of individual. To account for the varieties of linguistic forms which are interpreted as referring to kinds, we introduce a distinction between two types of kind-referring DPs: DPs which refer directly to a kind and DPs which refer indirectly to a kind. "."." English bare plurals as kind-referring DPs "."."." Carlson ("#$$) An important starting point for any discussion of genericity is Carlson's (%!""b) seminal study about bare plurals (BPs) and kind reference. Carlson showed that BPs in English are not the plural counterpart of inde-nite singulars (ISs). +e book contains ample evidence that constrasts BPs and ISs: they do not !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ) of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction ) give rise to the same ambiguities when they interact with quanti-ed DPs, with modal expressions, or with temporal adverbs. Examples (') through (#) are Carlson's original examples. (') a. Everyone read a book on caterpillars. b. Everyone read books on caterpillars. ()) a. A dog was everywhere. b. Dogs were everywhere. (&) a. An accident happened today at ., ':.$ and &. b. Accidents happened today at ., ':.$ and &. (") a. Max discovered two rabbits in his yard (in two hours / ??for two hours). b. Max discovered rabbits in his yard (??in two hours / for two hours). (#) a. ??Harvey continued to kill a rabbit. b. Harvey continued to kill rabbits. In ('a), 'a book on caterpillars' can be interpreted with a narrow-scope or wide-scope reading. But bare plurals are incompatible with a wide-scope interpretation, as we see in ('b), which cannot mean 'there are books on caterpillars that everyone read'. No speci-c collection of books is evoked. With the bare plural 'books on caterpillars', only the narrow-scope interpretation is available. ()a) is odd: it seems to imply that the same dog occupies di/erent places, which does con,ict with our knowledge that dogs are not ubiquitous. On the other hand, ()b) expresses a perfectly sensible and possibly true proposition, namely that there were di/erent dogs in di/erent locations. So with ()b), inverse scope is available: the universal everywhere can scope over the BP, even if everywhere doesn't c-command 'dogs' at the surface. +e examples in (&) illustrate scopal interpretations with respect to temporal adverbials. It seems that the plural can take narrower scope than the singular. To interpret (&a), we imagine the same type of accident occurring three times on the same day, such as a -re, explosion, or power outage.+e reading involving three accidents of di/erent types, e.g. a -re, an explosion, and a power cut all on the same day, is unavailable. On the other hand, in (&b), we are not asked to imagine recurrent accidents.+e contrast in (") concerns the interaction between inde-niteDPs and bare plurals on the one hand and aspect on the other. (") describes a situation inwhichMaxneeded twohours to discover two rabbits, and the sentence becomes bizarre if we replace in two hours by for two hours. +e relevant opposition here is telic vs atelic. For-complements are incompatible with telic processes. Finally, example (#) illustrates the interaction between plurality and aspect. When the verb kill is used with a bare plural argument, the aspect of the predicate changes and becomes durative. +is explains why it can combine with an aspectual verb like continue. But the case with singular inde-nites is di/erent. Consequently, !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) & of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi & Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete Carlson concludes that bare plurals cannot be analyzed as the plural counterpart of singular inde-nites, but are rather comparable to proper names which denote kinds. Like proper names, they are bare and they can serve to instantiate di/erent values of a universal quanti-cation, as illustrated in (!) and (%$): (!) a. One of these men sleeps. b. !x[x is a man][x sleeps] c. John sleeps or Peter sleeps or Bill sleeps . . . (%$) a. One of these kinds of bird ,ies. b. !x[x is a kind of birds][x ,ies] c. Sparrows ,y or penguins ,y or chicken ,y . . . (!a) is true if and only if (!c) is true, and (%$a) is true if and only if (%$c) is true. Intuitively, we have assigned proper names to x in the logical form (!b), and names of kinds to x in the logical form (%$b). According to Carlson, the bare plural acts as the proper name of a kind, and kinds are to be construed as individuals.* Carlson was the -rst to propose enriching the ontology with kinds, a new type of entity distinct from 'normal individuals' like John. But he also introduced a distinction between individuals and stages of individuals.+is distinction parallels the distinction between properties and states. Carlson assumes that states can be predicated not of John, but of stages of John. A stage of individual is a temporally bounded portion of that individual. '+e stages aren't simply things that are; they are more akin to things that happen. +at is, stages are conceived of as being much more closely related to events than to objects.' (Carlson %!""b: ''#). A stage of an individual corresponds to the realization of that individual at a certain time. An individual can be identi-edwith the set of its stages. +is is illustrated in (%%), for John. R(x,j) means that x is a stage of John, in other words, x is a realization of the individual j. (%%) !xR(x, j) Properties are predicated of an individual, and states are predicated of a stage of an individual. For example, being intelligent is a property of John (see (%(a)), and being sick is a not a property of John, but rather a state, which can be predicated of one of John's realizations (see (%.a)). (%(a) corresponds to the Logical Form (%(b), which reduces to (%(c), and (%.a) translates to (%.b), which reduces to (%.c). (%() a. John is intelligent. b. !PP(j) I c. I(j) * Nevertheless, it is important to note that substitutional interpretation of (!a) and (%$a) is possible if and only if there are names for all the men and names for all the species of birds. +is is a limit to this approach, which doesn't account for the intensional dimension of kinds. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) " of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction " (%.) a. John is sick. b. !PP(j) !x!y[R(y, x)"sick(y)] c. !y [R(y,j) " sick (y)] When we compare John runs and John is running, we see the same type of distinction: runs is a property (in this case a disposition or habit), and is running is a state. Carlson assumes that the progressive turns a property into a state.1 (%') a. John !P P(j) b. John runs run(j) c. John is running !y[R(y, j)"run(y)] We see the same thing with the bare plural dogswhich is analyzed as a name of a kind. To this extent, dogs and John are comparable. (%)) a. Dogs !P P(d) b. Dogs run run(d) c. Dogs are running !y [R(y, d)"run(y)] It follows that BPs are not ambiguous between existential and generic interpretation, but rather in all of their uses, they denote kinds.WhenBPs are existentially interpreted (as in (%'c)), the existential quanti-er comes from the predicate, which is a predicate of a stage of an individual, and not from the BP in itself. According to Carlson, English displays a speci-c form that refers to kinds, namely bare plurals. He claims that as such, English bare plurals are unanalyzable: they directly refer to kinds, which are abstract entities, not reducible to sets of individuals. +e following quotation makes this fact explicit. (%&) 'Let us agree then to treat bare NPs as a proper name of a kind, and let us think of kinds as being abstract individuals. In this treatment, Bare NPs are treated semantically as if they were unanalyzable wholes' (Carlson %!""b: ''.) Since bare plurals are names of kinds, they can be viewed as the set of all the properties that the kind has, just as a proper name of a 'normal' individual can be identi-ed, in Montague Grammar, as the set of all properties this individual has. (%") a. proper name of individual: John !P P(j) b. proper name of kind: dogs !P P(d) In summation, Carlson proposes to distinguish two types of entities: 'normal' individuals and kinds.+e most important di/erence between kinds and normal individuals concerns their location: 'Kinds are a little di/erent from more normal individuals in 1 In the following formulas, the same predicate 'run' is applied both to an individual and to a stage of individual.+is can be resolved using the notation proposed by Parsons (%!"!). We suppress this notation for the sake of simplicity. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) # of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi # Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete that kinds can be here and there, whereas normal individuals are generally con-ned to one location, at a given time.' (Carlson %!""b: ''(). He introduces another distinction between individuals and stages of individuals that correlates with the di/erence between two types of predicates: i-level predicates, which denote stable properties and are predicated of individuals, and s-level predicates which refer to states, are temporally anchored, and are predicated of stages of individuals. He uses the distinction between these two classes of predicates to account for habitual sentences, and draws a parallel between generic sentences based on quanti-cation over individuals such as (%#a), and habitual sentences such as (%#b). In each case, an i-level predicate is applied to a name. (%#) a. Whales are mammals. b. John smokes. Carlson's analysis is very elegant: it presents a uni-ed analysis of English bare plurals and predicts the correct existential and generic readings. Nevertheless, it is important to note that his analysis is not compositional to the extent that it does not take into account the fact that bare plurals involve a plural morpheme. ".".".% Chierchia ("##&) Chierchia's re,ection on the issue of reference begins with a cross-linguistic comparison. Chierchia proposed a typological classi-cation of DPs according to the features [+/argument, +/predicate]. +is classi-cation is based on the idea that the NP could denote either properties or kinds: in some languages they denote kinds, in others they denote properties, and in yet others they can denote either. According to him, kinds are entities, and as such, can be the syntactic argument of verbs just like proper names. Consequently, in languages where NPs denote kinds, they can serve as arguments of verbs: no DPs are needed and bare nouns are allowed in argument position. On the contrary, in languages where NPs denote properties, bare nouns cannot appear in argument position and a determiner is always needed. Chierchia assumes that this di/erence between languages corresponds with a semantic parameter and he claims that the cross-linguistic variations in the way languages refer to kinds can be derived from this semantic parameter. Chierchia assumes that this semantic parameter is composed of two features [+/– argument] and [+/– predicate]. He claims that: • N can function as an argument (being of type e either an object or a kind) i/ N is [+ argument] • N can function as a predicate (being of type #e,t$) and be used to restrict the range of determiners i/ N is [+ predicate] • If N is [+ argument, + predicate], both are possible • No language can be [– argument, – predicate] !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction ! Although very in,uential, Chierchia's proposal has also been much debated in the literature. +e main points of debate concern not only the data (see a.o. Longobardi ($$%; Zamparelli ($$$) and the validity of some empirical predictions (see a.o. Chung ($$$; Schmitt and Munn ($$$; Munn and Schmitt ($$) on Brazilian Portuguese; Déprez ($$) on Haitian Creole; Dayal ($$! on Hindi) but also the very idea of such a semantic parameter, which would be enough to base a typology of languages. Nonetheless, Chierchia's analysis had the virtue of extending the study of the nominal expression of genericity to languages other than English. Another important aspect of his paper is that it presents an elaboration of Carlson's thesis within a formal framework, on which we will focus here. Chierchia is a neo-Carlsonian, his proposals may be viewed as an elaboration of Carlson's analysis, as he assumes that English bare plurals are not ambiguous, but rather must be analyzed as kind-referring in all of their uses. Nevertheless, their proposals di/er on several points. • First, Chierchia doesn't use the notion of stage of an individual, which played a crucial role in Carlson's analysis, since it gives rise to a distinction between two types of predicates, i.e. individual-level predicates on the one hand and stagelevel predicates in the other. • Secondly, Chierchia analyzes the semantic contribution of plurality in English bare plurals. Indeed, contra Carlson, who compares English bare plurals with proper names (they are analyzed as constants at the logical form and are bare, i.e. built without any determiner), Chierchia proposes a compositional analysis of English bare plurals, in which the semantic import of the plural morpheme is analyzed. Bare plurals result from the composition of a plural morpheme with a singular predicate to form a plural predicate, which is nominalized. • Finally, Chierchia proposes a formal and compositional analysis of kindreferring DPs. He addresses the ontological issues related to the structure of the domain of reference of discourse entities, and he makes explicit the relations between singular individuals, plural individuals, kinds, and properties. He introduces new operators, the up and the down operators, which allow for an account of the relations between individuals and properties. Chierchia relied on previous formal work on the semantics of plurals by Link (%!#.a) and Landman (%!#!, %!!%, ($$$), which argued that the formal ontology of natural language should encompass both singular and plural individuals. Chierchia assumed that singular count nouns2 denote singular properties, i.e. properties that are true of singular individuals, while plural count nouns denote plural properties, i.e. properties 2 In this short presentation of Chierchia's proposal, we only consider count nouns. But in his paper, Chierchia also accounts for mass nouns. On his analysis, mass nouns come out of the lexicon already pluralized; they neutralize the singular/plural distinction. In other terms,mass nouns denote plural properties. See Chierchia (%!!#: .'& et seq.) !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %$ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi %$ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete that are true of plural individuals. Singular individuals are atomic entities of type e, and plural individuals may be viewed either as sets of singular individuals (such as {a,b,c}) or as sums of individuals (such as a % b % c). +e domain involving both singular and plural entities forms a complete atomic join semilattice, built from the bottom, which involves singular entities, via either the operator & or the operator %. Since the domain of reference is a semilattice in both cases, there always is a maximal element in this lattice, and this maximal element corresponds precisely to the denotation of English bare plurals, or, in other terms, always denotes a kind. Chierchia's claim is that a bare plural has a kind as its denotation, where the kind is obtained by applying the downoperator to the plural property associatedwith the bare noun. +e down operator is intensional: it maps any given world onto the maximal plural individual having the property associated with the noun. Chierchia (%!!#: .)() claims that 'kinds and (plural) properties can in away be seen as twomodes of packaging the same information'. He only considers plural properties because plurality plays a crucial role in his analysis.+ere is no kind associated with nouns such asGod or sun, as these nouns denote properties of singular entities, which can not be pluralized. Indeed, there is only one God and one sun in every possible world. Chierchia raised the issue of the relation between kind and property, and introduced the down and up operators that make it possible to switch from one to the other. Chierchia also uses the Russellian operator iota. Iota applies to the denotation of a singular or plural noun and yields the largest member included in this denotation, if there is one. Consequently, the iota operator is a maximalization operator: when the noun is plural, [["Ns]] yields the largest plurality of [[Ns]]; when the noun is singular, since there is no atom larger than any other one, [["N]] is only de-ned for singletons. It is important to highlight that iota is an operator de-ned with respect to a given world. Besides the iota, Chierchia introduces another operator, the down operator, which is a nominalization operator. It can only apply to plural properties, and according Chierchia it is, to some extent, an intensional iota (cf. p. .)%, n. %$). Ps is the extension of P in s. down up Properties Kinds F %&'() !.! Up and down operators. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction %% (%!) For any property P and world or situation s, 'P = !s "Ps, if !s "Ps is in K (the set of kinds) unde-ned otherwise +e down operator, which is also calledNOM in some papers, is simply an intensional version of the maximality operator associated with the de-nite determiner: (($) Plural Kind Formation: NOM: !P#s,#e,t$$!s " x[Ps(x)] Regular De-niteness IOTA: !P#s,#e,t$$ " x[Ps(x)] Let us now return to English bare plurals. Chierchia assumes that they directly refer to kinds. What is not very clear in Chierchia's proposal is the semantic type assigned to kinds. Are they of type e or #s,e$? Do they refer to singular or plural entities? Chierchia (%!!#: .'!) writes that 'it seems natural to identify a kind in any given world (or situation) with the totality of its instances'. +e di3culty is to determine whether and how, in a given world, Chierchia makes a distinction between a kind and the totality of the individuals which belong to the kind. +is issue is not absolutely crucial for the analysis of English, which has two distinct forms, bare plurals on the one hand, and plural de-nites on the other (see ((%)). But for a language such as French, inwhich there are no bare nouns, it is not immediately obviouswhether plural de-nites are ambiguous between referring to a kind and referring to a maximal set of individuals (note that the examples in (((), which are the French counterparts of ((%), both contain de-nite plurals). ((%) a. Whales are becoming extinct. b. +e whales are late this year. ((() a. Les baleines sont en voie de disparition. b. Les baleines sont en retard cette année. +en Chierchia analyzes generic sentences containing an NP which denotes a kind. He distinguishes the case of direct kind predication, in which the predicate is a kindlevel predicate as in ((.a), from the case where BPs occur with non-kind-selecting predicates, as in ((.b) and ((.c). In this case, BPs typically give rise to a universal reading in generic contexts, and to an existential one in episodic contexts. ((.) a. Whales are becoming extinct. b. Whales breathe under water. c. Whales were beached near the house this morning. Whenever an object-level argument slot in a predicate is -lled by a kind in an episodic sentence, the predicate type is automatically adjusted and predication is no longer on the kind but on the individuals which instantiate the kind. Chierchia (%!!#: .&') calls this mechanism the derived kind predication (see ((')). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi %( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete ((') Derived Kind Predication (DKP): If P applies to ordinary individuals and k denotes a kind, then P(k) = !x[&k(x) " P(x)] +is rule explains the existential readings for kind-referring DPs. In (()), the DP denotes a kind and occurs in an episodic sentence. (()) is about instances of the kind, and the LF associated with it is given in (()b) and is obtained by applying DKP.+e same mechanism is applied in ((&); ((&c) is obtained from ((&b) via DKP. (()) a. +at kind of animal is ruining my garden. b. !x [ & that kind of animal (x) " ruin my garden (x)] ((&) a. Lions are ruining my garden. b. ruin my garden ( ' lions) c. !x [ &' lions(x) " ruin my garden (x)] In characterizing sentences, Chierchia adopts a quanti-cational analysis in terms of the GEN operator as in Chierchia (%!!)) and in Krifka et al. (%!!)).+is is illustrated in ((") but also in a sentence like ((#a) including a DP built with the noun kind in subject position. ((") a. Dogs barks. b. GEN x,s [ &'dog(x) " C(x,s)] [bark(x,s)] ((#) a. [+at kind]k [suckles its young]o b. GEN x,s [ &that kind(x) " C(x,s)] [suckles its young(x,s)] In ((") and ((#a), the subject is a kind-referring DP, and variables over instances of the kind are accommodated in the restriction of the quanti-er GEN. C is a contextual restriction on appropriate individuals and situations. Chierchia assumes that the process whereby this happens is analogous to that illustrated in ((!). ((!) a. +ose boys are mostly Italian. b. MOST x [ x ( those boys] [Italian(x)] To conclude, let us highlight a di/erence between the proposals of Carlson and Chierchia. On Carlson's analysis, existential readings are correlated with s-level predicates, and theVP is the source of the existential interpretation of BPs, since s-level predicates involve an existential quanti-er ranging over a stage of an individual. For Chierchia, existential readings of BPs always come from the application of DKP and are the consequence of a typemismatch between the predicate and its argument. Unlike what happens in Carlson's original proposal, DKP is not a lexical operation on predicates but a rather type shi0er that applies on demand. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %. of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction %. ".".% !e ambiguity hypothesis ".".%." Proposal Contra Carlson and Chierchia, who assume that both existential and generic interpretations of English BPs are derived from kind reference, Wilkinson (%!!%), Diesing (%!!(), and Gerstner-Link and Krifka (%!!.) claim that English BPs are systematically ambiguous between Heimian inde-nites and kind-denoting DPs. As kind-denoting terms, they may appear in an argument position of kindlevel predicates. And as inde-nites, they may be arguments of object-level predicates. Like other inde-nites, they introduce discourse referents, which can be caught by the generic operator or by existential closure, depending on the context and in particular the aspect of the verb. Let us consider the three following sentences, which illustrate each type of con-guration. In (.$a), the DP is argument of a kind-level predicate. It is analyzed as a name of kind, as shown in (.$b). In (.%a) and (.(a), the DP dogs is the argument of an object-level predicate. It is analyzed as an inde-nite DP, which introduces a free variable in the logical form. In (.%b), the variable x is bound by the generic quanti-er GEN, a unselective quanti-er which is introduced by the VP bark which denotes a disposition or a habit. Krifka and Gerstner-Link have shown that the relation between habituals and genericity can be formally incorporated by the introduction of variables over situations.+ey give an interpretation of habituals in terms of generic quanti-cation over situations (see (.%b)). We can conclude that in (.%a), the generic interpretation of the bare plural is not due to the bare plural itself, but to the generic operator associated with the verb 'bark'. On the contrary, in (.(a), the progressive form barking excludes a habitual interpretation. +e VP does not introduce a quanti-er, and consequently the free variable associated with the bare plural is bound by the existential quanti-er introduced by the rule of existential closure (see (.(b)). (.$) a. Whales will be extinct soon. b. will-be-extinct-soon (W) (.%) a. Dogs bark. b. GEN s, x [dogs(s, x) " in(s, x)] [bark(s, x)] (.() a. Dogs are barking. b. ! s, x [dogs(s, x) " barking(s, x)] ".".%.% Advantages +e ambiguity hypothesis presents several advantages. First, it seems more appropriate than Carlsonian or neo-Carlsonian approaches to account for languages such as French, Finnish, or Japanese in which generic and existential readings are associated with di/erent morphological realizations. In French, the definite plural determiner 'les' is used to refer either to a kind or to a speci-c group of dogs, whose existence is not asserted but presupposed (see (..a)), while the inde-nite determiner 'des' is used in the existential reading, and is incompatible with generic !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi %' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete readings (see (..b)). (.') illustrates the fact that Finnish uses nominative case for kind-denotingDPs (which occur in characterizing sentences), while the partitive case is used for existential readings (associated with episodic sentences). And (.)) shows that in Japanese, kind-referring DPs carry a topic marker, which is replaced by the nominative case in episodic sentences, triggering an existential reading. (..) a. Les chiens aboient (French: GEN/!) def.PL dogs bark Dogs bark. b. Des chiens ont aboyé (*GEN/!) Indef.PL dogs barked Dogs barked. (.') a. Koirat haukkuvat (Finnish: GEN/*!) Dogs.NOM bark.PL Dogs bark. b. Koiria haukku (*GEN/!) dogs.PART bark.SG Dogs are barking. (.)) a. Inu wa hasiru (Japanese: GEN/*!)) dog TOP run Dogs run. / A dog runs. b. Inu ga hasitte iru (*GEN/!) dog NOM run PROGR Dogs are running. / A dog is running. A second advantage is that the ambiguity hypothesis predicts both existential and generic readings for BP subjects of stage-level predicates (see (.&)). It also accounts for data such as (."a) and (.#a), observed by Carlson but le0 unexplained by his analysis. (.&) Firemen are available. (.") a. John is looking for (parts of that machine/people in the next room) b. John is looking for (machines/people) (.#) a. John didn't see (parts of that machine/people in the next room) b. John didn't see (machines/people) Sentence (."a) allows both an opaque reading and a transparent one, unlike (."b), which only allows an opaque one. Something comparable happens with sentence (.#a), which involves a negation. (.#a) is ambiguous: on one reading it means that John did not see any part of themachine; on the other it says that there are parts of the machine that John didn't see.+e existential quanti-er associated with the bare plural !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %) of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction %) scopally interacts with negation in a way that sharply contrasts with the minimally di/erent sentence (.#b). Indeed, (.#b) is non-ambiguous: the BP is in the scope of the negation and cannot have scope over the VP. Carlson's analysis does not explain this di/erence: indeed, on his analysis, all BPs denote kinds and the existential or generic readings always depend on the predicate. But in examples (.") and (.#), the verb is the same. +is leads to the conclusion that some BPs do not denote kinds. +is is in contradiction with Carlson's analysis of English bare plurals, but absolutely compatible with the ambiguity hypothesis. In this framework, BPs like parts of that machine and people in the next room, which do not denote kinds, should behave like regular inde-nites.4 +e ambiguity hypothesis also resolves the problem raised by the presence of BPs in there-sentences. In the Carlsonian approach, BPs are analyzed as names of kinds, and as such, may be compared with de-nite DPs. And it is well-known that de-nite DPs cannot appear in the argument position of there-sentences, as illustrated in (.!a). However BPs may occur in there-sentences (see (.!b)). And so do kind-referring DPs built with the common noun kind, as in (.!c).+ese data, which need a special explanation in either the Carlson or Chierchia framework, are not problematic if BPs are analyzed as ambiguous. (.!) a. *+ere is John/that boy/the boy. b. +ere are dogs. c. +ere is that kind of animal in the zoo. And -nally, data concerning scopemay be viewed as providing an empirical argument in favor of the ambiguity hypothesis. Indeed, if BPs are kind-referring, as assumed by Carlson and Chierchia, they must take narrow scope. Even if this is frequently the case, empirical research has found some counter-examples. In this volume, Le Bruyn, Min Que, and de Swart present an experimental investigation on the scope of English bare plurals andMandarin Chinese and Dutch bare nominals.+eir results show that in appropriate contexts, BPs are actually able to take wide scope, just like inde-nites. +is result casts doubts on Carlson's (%!""b) assertion that BPs in English necessarily take narrow scope with respect to other scope-bearing operators in the sentence.+is paper defends the idea that even if wide-scope readings of BPs are rare, such readings are not de-nitively excluded by the grammar. 4 Carlson and Chierchia observed that BPs such as parts of that machine or boys sitting here, people in the next room give rise to wide-scope readings. +ey cannot account for that in their framework, since according to them, all bare plurals refer to kinds. Nevertheless, they recognize that intuitively these BPs are not associated with anything su3ciently law-like as to be regarded as a kind.+e open issue is to determine why such bare plurals are unable to denote kinds. Cohen suggests an alternative explanation, that does not require kind reference. According to him, such BPs allow wide-scope readings because they refer to a speci-c group of individuals, anchored in time and space and consequently are strong DPs. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %& of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi %& Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete ".".%.' Problems One problem with the ambiguity hypothesis is that it also predicts that BP subjects of individual-level predicates have both generic and existential readings, which is not supported by the data. For example ('$a) only has the generic reading, which corresponds to ('$b) and involves an overt adverb of quanti-cation. ('$) a. Firemen are intelligent. b. Firemen usually are intelligent. Diesing (%!!() proposes to solve the problem of ('$a) by limiting existential closure to the VP. She claims that subjects of stage-level predicates are generated in Spec VP, whereas subjects of individual-level predicates are generated in Spec IP. Consequently, subjects of individual-level predicates cannot be bound by existential closure, and thus cannot give rise to existential readings. To summarize, neither the theory according to which BPs are uniformly kindreferring, nor the ambiguity hypothesis are able to correctly account for the complexity of data. On the one hand, there is clear evidence that BPs are not interpreted only as the plural versions of inde-nite DPs (see Carlson on scope properties of English BPs); on the other, there is equally clear evidence that not all uses of bare BPs refer to kinds. +ey signi-cantly di/er from other kind-referring DPs such as de-nite singular DPs, and they show many similarities with inde-nite NPs. To solve this dilemma, Krifka (($$') elaborates a new theory of bare nouns, according to which they are neither kind-referring, nor inde-nites, but basically properties, which can be li0ed to one or the other interpretation in appropriate linguistic contexts. ".".' Bare plurals and property denotation ".".'." Krifka (%(()) Krifka discusses an alternative to Chierchia (%!!#) that remains quite close in spirit to this work, to the extent that he assumes that the NP denotation can be type-shi0ed and that type shi0ing does not occur freely, but only as a last-resort principle, if there is a type mismatch and the language cannot achieve the same e/ect by overt means. In other words, type shi0ing is blocked by the existence of overt determiners. Krifka uses the same type-shi0ing operators as Chierchia, namely the existential type shi0 inherited from Partee (%!#"), the iota operator which turns a set into its maximal element, and the down operator which turns a property into a kind. Both authors also consider that generic readings of BPs in characterizing sentences such as dogs bark involve a phonologically null generic quanti-er, whose meaning can be glossed by in general, and both assume that existential readings of BPs are provided by type shi0ing. +ey also share the idea that type shi0ing is local, which explains why existential BPs have always narrow scope. +e main di/erence between Krifka and Chierchia concerns the way they analyze bare plurals. As we have seen above, according to Chierchia, BPs always denote kinds, and existential readings of BPs are derived from kind reference via the DKP rule. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %" of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction %" For Krifka, however, BPs denote properties in all of their uses; generic as well as existential readings are obtained in context by type shi0ing from this basic property denotation. Before looking for empirical arguments that support one or the other of these hypotheses, let us present Krifka's analysis. In his analysis of bare plurals, Krifka pays attention to the compositional derivation of expressions. +e basic idea is that count nouns have a number argument in their lexical representation (see ('%a)).5 DOG(w, n, x) means that in the world w, the individual x consists of n dogs. DOG is of type #s,#n,#e,t$$$. +e number argument can be -lled by a numeral, as in ('%b). +e plural morpheme on the noun dogs in two dogs is a matter of syntactic agreement between the noun and the number word. +is agreement is not always realized: for example Hungarian lacks such an agreement. ('%) a. [[dog]] = !w!n!x[DOG(w, n, x)] b. [[two dogs]] = !w!x[DOG(w, 1, x)] In addition to the agreement plural present in such forms as two dogs, Krifka assumes that English also has a semantic plural that is responsible for BPs. +e lexical representation associated with BPs is given in ('(), where the number argument n is le0 unspeci-ed. ('() [[dogs]] = !w!x!n[DOG(w, n, x)] +us, Krifka introduces a distinction between two types of plural: one is syntactic, marked by agreement, and the other is semantic, and plays a role in the semantic composition of bare plurals. Singular count nouns di/er in semantic type from plural count nouns (which are comparable to mass nouns and nouns with explicit number): the former are functions fromnumbers to predicates and are of type #s,#n,#e,t$$$, while the latter are predicates and are of type #s,#e,t$$. Let us now turn to the semantic composition of bare plurals in the following sentences, where BPs are respectively combined with a kind-selecting predicate, with an object-selecting predicate in a characterizing sentence, and with an s-level predicate. ('.) a. Dogs are extinct. b. Dogs bark. c. Dogs are barking. In ('.a), the predicate is kind-selecting. Since BPs denote properties, there is a type mismatch. Krifka proposes resolving it via the down operator, which changes the property into a kind (see (''a). +e logical form associated with ('.a) is given in 5 In this introduction, we leave aside the case of mass nouns, and merely note that Krifka assumes that they lack such a number argument. So a mass noun such as gold has the following lexical representation, and is of type #s,#e,t$$. +us, mass nouns are semantically comparable to count plurals, as in Chierchia (%!!#). ((&() [[gold]] = !w!x[GOLD(w, x)] !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %# of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi %# Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete (''b). On Chierchia's account, the semantic composition in this type of sentence is direct, since BPs denote kinds. However Krifka needs to type-shi0 the subject from property denotation to kind denotation. ('') a. dogs is type-shi0ed into 'dogs b. !w BE-EXTINCT (w, 'dogs) Krifka claims that in characterizing and existential sentences the type shi0 from properties to kinds is not motivated by type mismatch, hence, by the last resort principle, it should not occur.+us he assumes that the BPs in such sentences remain propertydenoting: in characterizing sentences there is a phonologically null generic operator which establishes a relation between two properties. +e LF associated with ('.b) is given in (')). (')) GEN [!ndog(n, x)] [bark(x)] As for existential readings, as illustrated by ('.c), they can be obtainedwithout changing the type of the DP.Dogs denotes a property which is applied to an object predicate: thus there is a type mismatch. But according to Krifka, this mismatch cannot be resolved by an existential type shi0, since there are overt determiners that allow a property to turn into an entity: the singular inde-nite a and the plural inde-nite some. +us, if the last resort principle is true, some should block the application of type shi0ing and the forms associated with the existential reading should be ('&a) or ('&b) rather that ('.c), which should not be grammatical. ('&) a. A dog is barking. b. Some dogs are barking. So, to resolve the typemismatch in the case of existential readings, Krifka assumes that it is theVPwhich type-shi0s, rather than theDP.+is corresponds exactlywithwhat is proposed by van Geenhoven andDayal in terms of incorporation (see following).+e VP is changed as in ('"a) and a0er reduction, the LF associated with ('.c) is ('"b). ('") a. !w!P !x[BE-BARKING(w, x)" P(w, x)] b. !w!x!n(BE-BARKING(w, x)" DOG (w, n, x)) In sum, Krifka (($$') abandons the ambiguity hypothesis, which he previously defended for English BPs, and proposes a new analysis according to which BPs always denote properties that can be either type-shi0ed or incorporated. +e main point of divergence between Chierchia (%!!#) and Krifka (($$') concerns their analysis of number and the relationship between plurality and kind. According to Chierchia, kinds are only de-ned for plural properties, while forKrifka, no such restriction exists. +is restriction over kinds permits Chierchia to predict that English bare singulars are excluded for generic sentences such as ('#a) or ('#b). But if this constraint appropriately describes the grammar of bare nouns in English, it seems incompatible with !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) %! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction %! languages which allow both existential bare singulars and DPs built with an inde-nite article. In this regard, the case of Brazilian Portuguese constitutes a challenge for Chierchia's theory and the hypothesis of the nominal mapping parameter (see Munn and Schmitt ($$)). ('#) a. *Dog is extinct. b. *Dog barks. On the contrary, according to Krifka, there is no constraint on the down operator: it is de-ned both for singular and plural properties. For example, he claims that ''[one dog] is de-ned and stands for an individual concept that maps every world that has exactly one dog to that dog' (Krifka, ($$': %("). To account for the asymmetry between bare plurals and bare singulars in English, Krifka assumes the existence of a semantic plural in English (which is responsible for bare plurals) but denies the existence of a semantic singular in English. And he restricts the use of the down operator to true kind predications, i.e. predications made with a kind-selecting predicate. It is di3cult to -nd empirical arguments that distinguish between Chierchia's and Krifka's proposals. As already mentioned, the main point of divergence is that for Chierchia, all readings of BPs are derived from a kind reference, which is not the case for Krifka. Cohen (($$") suggests that if a language could be found in which BPs cannot denote kinds, but nevertheless occur in characterizing sentences or in existential sentences, then the conclusion could be drawn that generic and existential readings of BPs are not derived from kind reference. So such a language would be problematic for Chierchia, andmay be viewed as arguing for Krifka's analysis. According to Cohen (($$"), Italian is precisely a language of this type. ".".'.% Property denotation and incorporation +is change of perspective by Krifka's change of perspective is partly due to the work of Dayal, who showed that the ambiguity approach is not tenable for the interpretation of bare nominals in languages without determiners. She instead proposes an analysis of bare nominals in terms of incorporation. %.%...(.% Existential bare plurals analyzed as a case of semantic incorporation Van Geenhoven (%!!#) studied the syntax and semantics of incorporated nouns in West Greenlandic. She proposed an analysis of these nominals as property-denoting expressions. +e claim is that incorporated nouns denote neither individuals nor quanti-ers but rather properties, which combine with verbs and impose restrictions on the interpretation of their arguments. More precisely, the nominal expression N restricts the domain of variation of the verbal argument x, as described below. ('!a) gives the translation of a transitive verb V, ('!b) shows how the incorporated noun (N) combines with the transitive verb (V), and ('!c) gives the result of the semantic composition a0er reduction. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ($ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi ($ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete ('!) a. V : !Q!x!y[V(x, y) " Q(y)] b. V-N : !Q!x!y[V(x, y) " Q(y)] N c. V-N : !x!y[V(x, y) " N(y)] Such an analysis predicts weak readings and narrow-scope e/ects of incorporated nouns. From the observation that incorporated nouns in West Greenlandic and English bare plurals share the same semantic properties (narrow scope and weak reading), van Geenhoven suggests that existential readings of English bare plurals are the result of semantic incorporation. She thus proposes that English bare plurals in existential contexts are not kind-denoting but property-denoting. %.%...(.( Bare nouns and incorporation In the line of vanGeenhoven, other authors have been interested in the semantics of incorporation, including Dayal (%!!!) for Hindi, Farkas and de Swart (($$.) for Hungarian, and Chung and Ladusaw (($$') for Chamorro. All these authors have focused on languages other than English that allow not only bare plurals, but also bare singulars.+e challenge is to expand the account from the semantics of bare plurals to the semantics of bare nouns in general.+e study of the distribution and interpretation of bare nouns across languages revealed the importance of number morphology in the analysis of bare nouns. Indeed, it has been observed that languages which allow both bare singulars and bare plurals place very di/erent constraints on each: -rst, bare singulars occur in very few contexts and are usually less productive than bare plurals; and second, bare singulars frequently trigger number neutrality e/ects.+ese facts require explanation, and seem to co-vary with whether the language in question morphologically marks number, and whether it has articles. We will -rst discuss the case of Romance languages, distinguishing Brazilian Portuguese which presents peculiarities, and then we explore the case of Hindi, which marks number but has no articles.+e issues to resolve are the following: what is the denotation of bare singulars and bare plurals in these languages and how are generic and existential interpretations of bare nouns derived in context? What is the role of number in interpretation, and how should number neutrality e/ects be explained? Bare nouns in Romance languages. Espinal (($%$) investigates the structure and meaning of bare nominal expressions inCatalan and Spanish, twoRomance languages that display both number morphology and articles. Unlike English, these languages allow both bare singular and bare plural count nominals in internal argument position.+is is illustrated in ()$). ()$) a. necesitar cotxe [Catalan] need car b. necesitar zapatos need shoes !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) (% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction (% Bare count nominals are encountered in object position, not only in idiomatic constructions (Espinal ($$%), but also in non-idiomatic expressions (Laca %!!!).6 BSs share three main properties with BPs: obligatory narrow scope, atelicity, and type anaphora (Espinal and McNally ($$"). But there is an important asymmetry between BSs and BPs: while object BPs combine unrestrictedly with any class of verbs, object BSs can only combine with a restricted class of verbs. To account for this di/erence, Espinal focuses on the role of number in the semantics of nominal expressions. She claims that bare nominals without pluralmorphology in Catalan and Spanish are not bare singulars (BSs), but rather simple bare nouns (BNs). Bare nouns in object position (such as cotxe/car in ()$a)) are not singular, but unmarked for number. So she distinguishes between three types of nominals: bare nouns (BNs), number phrases (NumPs) including bare plurals, and determiner phrases (DPs). Her claim is that BNs in Catalan and Spanish lack both a number and a determiner. Syntactically, they are unmarked for number and determiner and therefore cannot be considered canonical arguments. Semantically, they are propertydenoting expressions which modify the transitive verb of which they are an object by semantic incorporation. Espinal defends the idea that BNswhich do not have inherent number denote properties of atomic kinds, whereas BPs, which are number phrases, have a plural interpretation and denote non-atomic sums of individuals that have the property N. +e denotation of a BN must be contrasted with the denotation corresponding to BPs, but also to singular de-nites and singular inde-nites. According to Espinal, the presence of number is su3cient to license postverbal plural bare nominals as internal arguments, and the absence of number in BNs explains the restrictions on their use in object position. +is and the fact that BNs denote properties of singular kinds explains why BNs can occur in object position only when the V-N complex predicate provides a characterizing property of the external subject (e.g., being the author of a book, being a car owner, a bank account holder, an apartment buyer, awatchwearing person). She adds that the absence of number phrase in BNs explains why they are interpreted as number neutral: BNs denote properties of kinds and convey a number-neutral interpretation that is compatible with atomic as well as non-atomic entailments. She shows how a number-neutral reading can lead to either an enriched singularity or a plural interpretation in appropriate contexts.+e -nal interpretation depends on the contextual information available. 6 +is distribution is unexpected in Chierchia's (%!!#) framework, since according to the Nominal Mapping Parameter, Catalan and Spanish are identi-ed, like all Romance languages, as being of type [–arg, +pred]. In these languages nouns denote properties rather than individuals and determiner-less nominals are expected to behave as predicates, not as arguments. Consequently, BNs should not be allowed in argument position unless a D category is projected (see a.o. Longobardi %!!'). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) (( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi (( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete *e case of Brazilian Portuguese. Among Romance languages, Brazilian Portuguese presents several peculiarities. Brazilian Portuguese has been presented by Munn and Schmidt as a counter-example to Chierchia's typology based on the Nominal Mapping Parameter, because like other Romance languages, Brazilian Portuguese has de-nite singular and plural kind terms and yet it di/ers from them in admitting bare singulars as well as bare plurals in generic contexts (see Schmitt and Munn ($$$;Munn and Schmitt ($$);Müller ($$(a,b). Another di/erence betweenBrazilian Portuguese and other Romance languages is that BSs as well as BPs are acceptable in subject position. However, bare singulars are ruled out from the preverbal subject position of episodic sentences, unlike bare plurals (see ()%a)). Furthermore, it is interesting to note that in ()%b), the postverbal subject crianca, which is morphologically singular, is interpreted as number-neutral: the sentence is interpreted as true whether one or more than one child arrived. ()%) a. *Crianca chegou [Brazilian Portuguese] child arrived b. Chegou crianca arrived child A child/children arrived. +ere is no consensus on how to analyze the distribution and interpretation of BSs in Brazilian Portuguese. +e fact that both singular and plural bare nouns in Brazilian Portuguese obligatorily take narrow scope, as well as the number-neutral readings associated with bare singulars, can be viewed as evidence that they are incorporated. But two issues remain open: the issue of generic readings of bare singulars (to the extent that there is no agreement about the status of bare singulars as kind terms) and the issue of number-neutral readings. Semantic Incorporation inHindi orRussian. Languages such asHindi andRussian display morphological number (like English) but do not have articles (like Chinese). Dayal provides syntactic and semantic arguments that Hindi exhibits cases of incorporation of bare nouns. InHindi, accusativemarking is optional on inanimate objects. But the situation with animate objects is more nuanced. Case marking is obligatory if the object has a determiner, as in ()(a), but optional if there is no determiner. +e fact that an animate nominal occurs without case marking only when it has no determiner provides a piece of evidence that non-case-marked animates represent instances of incorporation. Furthermore, it has been observed that the case-marked formof an animate object in ()(b) refers to some particular child, while the unmarked form refers to one or more children. So, although the nominal is singular, it is interpreted as number-neutral. Furthermore, narrow-scope e/ects have been observed with unmarked forms, which strengthens the idea that bare nouns are sometimes incorporated in Hindi. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) (. of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction (. ()() a. anu (*har bacca/har bacce-ko) sambhaaltii hai [Hindi] Anu every child/every child-ACC looks a0er Anu looks a0er every child. b. anu bacca/bacce-ko sambhaaltii hai Anu child/child-ACC looks-a0er Anu looks a0er (one or more) children/the child. Languages like Hindi or Russian freely allow bare singular arguments as well as bare plurals, and both types of bare noun display kind and generic readings. However, bare singulars are not trivial variants of bare plurals.+e following example from Russian demonstrates that bare singulars and bare plurals behave di/erently with respect to scope e/ects. ().) a. 7Sobaka byla vesde dog SG was SG everywhere A dog was everywhere. b. Sobaki byli vesde dog PL was PL everywhere Dogs were everywhere. ().a) is strange because it suggests that one and the same dogwas everywhere. Similar examples can be found in Hindi. ()') a. 7caro taraf baccaa khel rahaa thaa four ways child SG was playing SG +e same child was playing everywhere. b. caro taraf bacce khel rahe the four ways child PL was playing PL Children (di/erent ones) were playing in di/erent places In ()'a) the bare singular does not have a narrow-scope inde-nite reading. However the bare plural in a similar context has a plausible narrow-scope inde-nite reading. Dayal argues that this type of example proves that bare singulars in Hindi as well as in Russian can have weak inde-nite readings but they cannot be considered bona -de inde-nites, since they can never take wide scope over other scopal expressions like everywhere in ().) and )'. +e di/erence between bare singulars and bare plurals can be captured if it is assumed that the two types of bare nouns provide two di/erent ways to refer to kinds. Dayal notes that in languages without determiners, bare nominals do double duty as de-nites and inde-nites, and she suggests that bare singulars in Hindi or Russian should be compared with de-nite generic NPs like the dog in English, whereas bare plurals are similar to English bare plurals. According to Dayal, the speci-city of bare singulars is that they cannot refer non-maximally. +is can be explained if !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) (' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi (' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete bare nominals in languages without determiners are assumed to be only ambiguous between kinds and de-nites, and not ambiguous between kinds and inde-nites. +e apparent inde-nite reading of bare nouns arises from the intervention of DKP and is constrained by morphologically triggered number restrictions. So in this respect, Dayal follows the analysis of Carlson andChierchia in that she assumes that inde-nite readings of bare plurals are derived from kind reference via DKP. Concerning the issue of number-neutral readings of bare singulars, Dayal shows that in Hindi these readings are always dependent on some aspectual speci-cations in the sentence. She concludes that they are not derived from the ability of bare nouns to denote in the plural domain but rather from interactions between bare singulars with aspectual expressions associated with pluractional operators. She assumes that number neutrality is not inherent to bare singulars but is a by-product of aspect. So number neutrality is an e/ect of incorporation: number-neutral readings of incorporated nominals are the result of the interaction between a pluractional operator (responsible, for example, for an iterative reading) and nominal arguments. To conclude, the various studies mentioned above show that syntactic incorporation and semantic incorporation may be de-ned and characterized independently. Semantic incorporation does not rely on a requirement that the incorporated nominal surface as a morphological or a syntactic unit with the verb. Semantic incorporation can be identi-ed on the basis of three semantic properties: obligatory narrow scope, number-neutral readings of singular or unmarked incorporated nominals, and the ability or inability of incorporated nominals to support discourse anaphora.8 Although Dayal's proposal is in the line of the analysis of incorporating verbs in Van Geenhoven (%!!#), there are nevertheless important di/erences, in particular concerning the relationship between incorporation and inde-niteness. Van Geenhoven wrongly con,ated existential readings of kind terms and incorporation, and assumed that semantic incorporation can be regarded as a subtheory of inde-niteness. Dayal has shown that Hindi militates against this con,ation, as only non-casemarked bare singular direct objects, i.e. those that can plausibly be argued to undergo incorporation, have number-neutral readings. All other bare singulars carry strict singular implicatures. More generally, she shows that incorporation is independent from inde-niteness, as she analyzes Hindi bare singulars in generic contexts in terms of incorporation, and compares them with English de-nite generics.9 A second point 8 We leave aside this aspect of incorporation in this introduction. 9 We can -nd the same type of conclusion in Kwon and Zribi-Hertz (($$&) on bare objects in Korean, which presents a descriptive study of Korean 'bare' objects.+ey call bare objects those objects which fail to be su3xed by the marker (l)eul, commonly glossed as an accusative case marker. A systematic survey of LEUL-marked and bare objects reveals that the latter verify two properties currently regarded as characteristic of semantic incorporation. It appears, however, that although they are semantically incorporated, Korean bare objects may be fully referential. +e authors are led to assume that the interpretive e/ects of semantic incorporation may derive from either referential or informational de-ciency, and that these two types of de-ciency are quite independent from each other. +ey conclude contra Van Geenhoven (%!!#) that semantic incorporation cannot be regarded as a subtheory of inde-niteness. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) () of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction () which deserves to be highlighted here is that all the studies on bare nouns and incorporation in various languages have provided a fresh perspective in the debate over bare nouns and kind reference.+ey have contributed to the emergence of new areas of exploration, such as the source of number-neutral readings or the role of number in the building of kind reference. All works on incorporation are presented as alternatives or complements to Carlson's thesis, according to which English bare plurals directly refer to kinds and provide empirical evidence that languages o/er various ways to refer to kinds. +us distinctions between singular and plural kinds on the one hand and between direct and indirect kind reference on the other should be made clear. ".".) Varieties of kind-referring DPs Since Carlson's (%!""b) paper, the existence of kinds in ontology, as opposed to individuals, has been widely assumed. But the issue of which linguistic means are used to refer to kinds deserves attention. Carlson and Chierchia have focused on English bare plurals. Yet English displays another way of kind-referring, namely the singular de-nite, as attested by the diagnostic of kind-level predication (see ())a) which can be compared with ())b)). ())) a. +e dinosaur is extinct. b. Dinosaurs are extinct. +e bare plural and the singular de-nite are both kind-referring expressions, but the latter has been much more studied than the former. Yet both types of nominals are not in free variation: their behavior di/ers in statements where aspect supports an episodic interpretation. +e bare plural lends itself to an existential interpretation (()&a) means ()&b)) while the de-nite singular kind term does not (()&c) does not mean ()&d)). ()&d) can only be interpreted as a statement about a contextually salient dog. ()&) a. Dogs are barking. b. Some dogs are barking. c. +e dog is barking. d. A dog is barking. So kind-referring de-nite singulars in languages like English are not trivial variants of kind-referring bare plurals. It follows that any theory of genericity has to account for the di/erences between singular and plural terms with respect to kind formation. And if there is a grammatical di/erence between kind-referring bare plurals and kind-referring de-nite singulars in languages like English, if bare plurals and de-nite singulars correspond to two di/erent ways of referring to kinds in English, new issues arise about Romance languages as well as languages without determiners, such as !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) (& of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi (& Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete Russian or Hindi. First, what are the counterparts of English bare plurals and de-nite singulars in languages like French and Italian, and are kind-referring de-nite plurals comparable with English de-nite singulars or with English bare plurals? And second, in languages without articles, where there is a free type shi0 from properties to kinds (singular kinds as well as plural kinds), how should we account for kind-referring bare nouns and for the relationship between number and kind formation? In the last decade, studies about bare nouns in languages other than English and the relationship between de-niteness, inde-niteness, and genericity have provided fresh insight into the issue of kind formation in natural language.+e aimof this subpart is to determine the semantic contribution of the determiner, of number, and of the noun itself in the computation of the reference of kind-referring DPs, in a compositional manner. It has been observed thatmost languages display di/erentmethods of referring to kinds and use either bare nouns or de-nite noun phrases, but that no language has a speci-c determiner dedicated to kind formation (see Section %.%.'.% below). Furthermore, since Dayal's (($$!) proposal, it has generally been accepted that common nouns are ambiguous and may denote either a property of individuals, or a property of kind, a result that predicts the taxonomic uses of DPs, as well as the kind-referring uses of de-nite singulars (see Section %.%.'.(). +e issue of the relationship between a kind and its instances remains to be clari-ed, but we propose a distinction between two di/erent ways to access kinds: directly, without mentioning the instances of the kind, and indirectly, by referring to the maximal sum of its instances. ".".)." No speci*c determiner It has been remarked that natural languages generally do not have speci-c linguistic means to express genericity in the nominal domain: there is no determiner speci-cally dedicated to the expression of genericity. According to Dayal, this can be explained by the fact that languages do not lexicalize extensional vs. intensional distinctions. We have seen that in English, BPs may be used to refer to kinds. But they give rise to two types of readings (generic or existential) depending on the context in which they occur (see the contrast between ()"a) and ()"b)). So it cannot be assumed that English bare plurals are dedicated to the reference to kinds. Moreover, English can use other types of DPs to achieve reference to a kind, as illustrated by the synonymy between ()"a) and ()"c). +us both BPs and singular de-nites may be used to refer to kinds. Nevertheless, singular de-nites, like BPs, are not specialized for kind reference and may be used to refer to individuals, as in ()"d), where the NP !e son of my neighbors is presuppositional and denotes a particular man. ()") a. Tigers are striped. b. Mary bought oranges. c. +e tiger is striped. d. +e son of my neighbors is blond. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) (" of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction (" +e same is true in French, where singular and plural de-nite DPs may sometimes be used to refer to a kind (see ()#a) and ()#b)), and sometimes to ordinary individuals (as in ()#c) and ()#d)). ()#) a. La baleine est un mammifère. b. Les hommes sont des bipèdes sans plumes. c. Le lion est mort dans l'après-midi. d. Les manifestants ont envahi l'assemblée nationale. More generally it has been observed that all types of DPs (be they de-nite, inde-nite, or quanti-ed)may be used to refer to a kind or a subkind, as illustrated in the following examples. In ()!a), the lion refers to the species of lions, in ()!b) the inde-nite DP refers to a subkind of whales, and ()!c) and ()!d) involve quanti-ed DPs (most mammals, all mammals) which range over subkinds. Examples ()!b), ()!c), and ()!d) illustrate taxonomic readings in which the noun phrase quanti-es over subkinds of N. ()!) a. +e lion is a predatory cat. b. A whale-the blue whale-is becoming extinct. c. Most mammals belong to the placental group. d. All mammals are warm-blooded. ".".).% !e noun ambiguity In English, besides bare plurals, singular de-nite DPs may also refer to kinds. A singular de-nite DP such as the lion is ambiguous and may refer either to a simple lion or to lion-kind. To account for this ambiguity in a compositional way, three options are available: either the ambiguity comes from the determiner, from the noun, or from both of these. One thesis, -rst defended by Dayal (%!!!) and (($$'b) and now largely accepted, is that common nouns are ambiguous and may denote either a property of an individual or a property of a kind. Any determiner can combine with these two denotations. In the -rst case, composition yields the familiar reading with a denotation in the object domain; in the second case, it yields a taxonomic reading with a denotation in the domain of kinds and subkinds (see ()!)). +us the ambiguity of de-nite singulars comes from the noun and not from the determiner. Once it is assumed that a common noun may denote a property of a kind, it becomes easy to account for the kind reading of de-nite singulars, as well as taxonomic readings of inde-nite or quanti-ed noun phrases, such as ()!b), ()!c), and ()!d). If the noun can denote a property of kind, the simplest way to make reference to a kind in those languages that have a de-nite determiner is by means of a singular de-nite. +e noun phrase the lion means 'the kind called lion' and the use of the de-nite determiner is allowed because the presupposition attached to the de-nite determiner (according which there is one and only one kind called lion) is satis-ed. And when the kind noun is preceded by an inde-nite determiner or by a !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) (# of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi (# Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete quanti-er, the role of this determiner is to set o/ one or several subspecies or subkinds belonging to the species or kind denoted by the noun. In other words, when the noun whale denotes a property of kind, noun phrases awhale, three whales,most whales, and all whales denote generalized quanti-ers that are de-ned over subkinds of whales, not over individual whales. Consequently a whalemeans 'a subkind of whale', three whales means 'three subkinds of whales',most mammalsmeans 'most subkinds of mammals', and all mammalsmeans 'all subkinds of mammals'. +ere is an important di/erence between kinds and individuals. While individuals may be structured as a lattice, as shown by Link (%!#.) and Landman (%!#!a,b), kinds and subkinds are structured as a taxonomy but not as a lattice. Indeed, the plural object a % b can be built from two individuals, a and b. Similarly, the plural entity k% % k( can be built from two subkinds k% and k(, but this plural entity k% % k( may be neither a kind nor a subkind. So there is no lattice built over subkinds and kinds. But kinds and subkinds are structured as a taxonomy, such that the sum of all subkinds of N corresponds precisely to the kind N, to the extent that they share exactly the same instances. So in a sense, when the noun is interpreted as a property of kind, the two noun phrases the whale and the whales convey the same meaning, since their denotations cover the same individuals, the same instances. Nevertheless, a distinction has to be maintained between kinds viewed as entities and kinds viewed as the sum (or the set) of their instances.When the noun is interpreted as a property of a kind, it refers to kinds or subkinds viewed as entities, and only indirectly to sums or sets of instances. We will come back to the di/erence between a kind and its instances in the next part. In sum, the ambiguity of de-nite singulars follows from the assumption that common nouns are ambiguous and may denote properties of kinds. But plural predicates also are ambiguous. A noun phrase such as lionsmay be analyzed as denoting either the closure under sum formation of the subkinds of lions, or the closure under sum formation of individuals which are lions. Consequently, the de-nite plural the lions may denote either the sum of all subkinds of lions or the sum of all individuals which are lions.+e choice between these two denotations is determined contextually. Nevertheless, these two analyses do not provide the same interpretation, since the sum of subkinds is built from intensional entities, while the sum of individuals is extensional and de-ned only in the actual world. +is explains why, in a language like English where bare plurals lexicalize the down operator (see Chierchia %!!# and Krifka ($$'), bare plurals, whose reference is intensional, are not equivalent with de-nite plurals, whose reference is extensional when the noun is analyzed as denoting a property of individuals. +is is di/erent in Romance languages like French and Italian, where the down operator is lexicalized by the plural de-nite article. In these languages, de-nite plurals are systematically ambiguous andmay denote either a kind viewed as an entity or a maximal sum of individuals, which is extensional and de-ned in the actual world. +us, de-nite singulars in English and Romance languages are !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) (! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction (! similar (the noun denotes a property of kind and the de-nite article is the usual iota), but de-nite plurals in Romance languages are ambiguous, and correspond both to English bare plurals and English de-nite plurals. +e noun ambiguity hypothesis provides an explanation of the fact that languages display various ways to express kind reference: bare plurals and de-nite singulars in English, or de-nite singulars and de-nite plurals in Romance languages. To account for the fact that in English as well as in Romance languages, the use of kind-referring de-nite singulars is more constrained than the use of the other linguistic forms, it is enough to assume that not all common nouns are able to denote a property of kind. A de-nite nominal may denote a kind only if the noun itself is able to denote a property of kind. It has been observed that this is not the case for all nouns. For example, modi-ed nouns cannot (see (&$a)), unless they refer to what Krifka et al. (%!!)) called well-established kinds and what Beyssade (($$)) called compound nouns or lexicalizations for French (see (&$b)). (&$) a. 7+e green bottle has a narrow neck. b. +e coke bottle has a narrow neck. +e same thing happens with nouns which occupy a high position in the taxonomy of kinds and subkinds. For example, while the train or the whale may be kindreferring in context (see (&%a) and (&%b)), it is never the case with the mammal (see (&%c)). (&%) a. +e train is less dangerous than the car. b. +e whale is a mammal. c. 7+e mammal suckles its young. Various observations have been made on the constraints which restrict the use of kind-referring de-nite singulars, but no systematic study on this issue has beenmade. Nevertheless, in the last decade, the issue of relationships between concepts and kinds has been investigated by cognitivists such as a. o. Gelman, Prasada, and Leslie. To conclude, there is an observationwhich has yet to be explained in the framework of the noun ambiguity hypothesis. Englishmass terms, when they refer to kinds, never occur with a de-nite determiner (see (&(a) and (&(b). (&() *Man invented the steel. Yet mass terms belong to taxonomic hierarchies and may receive taxonomic interpretations on a par with count nouns (see for example wine, red wine, white wine). If the de-nite article encodes the iota operator and freely applies to the taxonomic domain, one would expect it to occur with mass terms as well as with count nouns. Chierchia (%!!#) accounts for bare uses of mass nouns by assuming that mass nouns !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .$ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi .$ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete are semantically plural and are built with the down operator. In fact, he predicts that mass nouns may occur bare, but he does not predict that they cannot occur with a de-nite determiner. An answer could be that mass nouns, unlike count nouns, are not predicates (i.e. words denoting a property of an individual or a property of a kind), but they could be basically kind-denoting. +ey would be similar to proper names and would thus not require a determiner when used in argument position.We will not develop this idea here as it brings up the issue of the count-mass distinction and the semantics of mass nouns, which is beyond our present purpose, centered on genericity and kind reference. ".".).' Direct and indirect reference to kind From the noun ambiguity hypothesis, it follows that natural languages display at least two di/erent ways to form kindreferring terms: • by applying the down operator to a plural property, as suggested by Chierchia (%!!#) • by applying the iota operator to a singular noun which denotes a property of kind. +ese two ways to refer to kinds di/er in two respects: the former involves a plural noun which refers to a property of an object while the latter involves a singular noun which refers to a property of kind; moreover, the former uses the down operator while the latter uses the iota operator. To distinguish between these two modes of kind formation, Dayal (($%%) calls 'plural kinds' the kind terms built with plural nouns and the down operator and 'singular kinds' the kind terms built with a singular noun and the iota operator. In English, the -rst way corresponds to bare plurals, and the second to de-nite singulars. It has been claimed that in Romance languages, the de-nite singular article lexicalizes the iota operator and the de-nite plural article lexicalizes the down operator. And Dayal suggests that in languages without determiners such as Russian or Hindi, bare singular nouns illustrate the second type of kind formation, i.e. singular kind formation. We have seen that singular and plural kind terms are not trivial variants. In English, bare plurals (BPs) and de-nite singulars (DSs) di/er in frequency and distribution. DSs are more limited than BPs in generic sentences. • DSs are limited to well-established kinds (Krifka et al. %!!)), i.e. natural kinds such as the lion and concepts such as the sonnet (Carlson ($$!) • DSs are excluded for human categories (such as the lawyer or the piano player) • DSs are excluded for overly general terms (such as the parabola or the curve) (see Vendler %!"%) Similar observations have beenmade concerning the contrast between de-nite singulars and de-nite plurals in French. Beyssade (($$)) focuses on generic uses of French !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction .% de-nite DPs and accounts for cases where singular and plural DPs are not equivalent. +e claim is that in French, generic de-nite singularDPs involve a nounwhich denotes a property of kind, as in English. As for generic plural de-nite DPs, instead of being interpreted as referring to the maximal sum of entities in the actual world, they are interpreted as referring to themaximal sum of entities in anyworld: the plural de-nite determiner may be viewed as the lexicalization of the down operator. Dayal claims that singular kinds di/er from plural kinds in not having a semantically transparent relation to their instantiations. She observes that in languages with number marking but no determiners (like Hindi or Russian), bare plurals behave more or less like English bare plurals, but bare singulars are substantively di/erent. She claims that what distinguishes singular kind terms from plural kind terms is the way they relate to their instantiations. An analogy can be drawn with what distinguishes collective nouns like the team and plural nouns like the players. Barker (%!!() and Schwarzschild (%!!&) have argued that collective nouns di/er from plural nouns in being group-like rather that sum-like: collective nouns like the team must be represented as groups, which are atomic entities with no access to their parts, while nouns like the players correspond to a sum of individuals, whose atomic parts are available for predication.+e following examples illustrate this di/erence between groups and sums. (&.) a. +e players live in di/erent cities. b. *+e team lives in di/erent cities. Following thework ofChierchia (%!!#) which rules out bare singular kinds in English, Dayal assumes that the down operator applies only to plural nouns and yields a kind term that allows semantic access to its instantiations, analogously to sums. Singular kind terms restrict such access and to this extent are analogous to collective nouns. Like groups and sums, singular and plural kinds are conceptually associated with the same set of entities, but di/er in their relation to these entities. We will say that singular kind terms directly refer to kinds, while plural kinds terms only refer indirectly, because the plural indicates the trace of a reference to the instances of the kind. For the moment, we have only compared bare plurals and de-nite singulars in English and de-nite plurals vs de-nite singulars in French. But in order to give a better description of kind-referring noun phrases at least in English, we have expanded the picture to include de-nite plurals. Condoravdi (%!!', %!!") has shown that there are contexts in English in which bare plurals and de-nite plurals convey the same meaning (see (&'a) and (&'b)). According to Condoravdi, the bare plural students in (&'a) is not existential, since (&'a) doesn't mean (&'c). But students isn't generic either, because it is not lawlike. She concludes that besides the generic and existential readings of English bare plurals, there is a third reading of bare plurals, which she calls the functional reading, which corresponds precisely to situations where bare !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi .( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete plurals and de-nite plurals seem to converge. According to her, the bare plural in (&'a) conveys a quasi-universal reading. (&') a. In %!#) there was a ghost haunting the campus. Students were afraid. b. In %!#) there was a ghost haunting the campus.+e students were afraid. c. In %!#) there was a ghost haunting the campus. +ere were students who were afraid. Condoravdi adopts a very radical position, since she considers that English bare plurals are compatible with not two, but three di/erent readings.+is claim is debated in the literature and it seems possible to analyze Condoravdi's examples as a subcase of generic readings, called restricted generics by Drewery (%!!#). Nevertheless Condoravdi's data show that in languages which have both bare nouns and de-nite determiners, it is important to compare the uses and interpretations of these two forms in order to determine whether and how each language lexicalizes the down operator. Schaden's paper in this volume addresses the issue in German and accounts for the di/erences between BPs and de-nite plurals. Several dimensions are relevant in the characterization of the di/erences: one can refer to a kind either via its extension (i.e the set of all of its members) or via its intension (i.e. the set of the characteristic properties of the kind); one can refer to all the actual instances of a kind, or to a kind as an abstract entity. ".".).) Conclusion It is commonly accepted that reference is not only limited to individuals or pluralities but also to kinds. +e most convincing evidence for kind reference comes from the existence of kind-level predicates such as be extinct. We have shown that in every attested language, kind terms are either bare or occur with the de-nite determiner. Furthermore, languages o0en display several ways to express kind reference. +e presence or absence of number morphology seems to play a crucial role in kind formation and in the way a kind is related to its instances. Recent works in psychology concerning generics (e.g., Gelman ($$.; Gelman and Bloom ($$"; Prasada et al. ($$#; Prasada ($%$; Leslie ($$#; Leslie et al. ($$!) o/er a new perspective concerning linguistic studies on genericity. +ese studies test the empirical validity of theoretical proposals concerning the logical form of generic sentences. For example, to discriminate the neo-Carlsonian approaches, which claim that existential readings of English bare plurals derive from kind-referring denotations, from the ambiguity approach, it would be useful to test the validity of basic contrasts concerning the scope of generic NPs. In this volume, Le Bruyn et al.'s paper presents some initial results which seem to invalidate the scope contrasts invoked by Carlson and the neo-Carlsonians. Empirical studies could also be made in order to establish a complete description of di/erences in distribution between BPs, inde-nite DPs, and de-nite DPs that contribute to generic sentences. And -nally, the issue of relationships between concepts and kinds, recently !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .. of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction .. investigated by cognitivists, remains to be clearly articulated in the theoretical literature on generics. !.# Genericity and the VP We now turn to the relation between genericity and the VP. Section %.(.% focuses on the distinction between stage-level and individual-level predicates, which, in Carlsonian terms, describe, respectively, stages of an individual and individuals themselves. At the time of !e Generic Book, two assumptions were made. First, it was assumed that these predicates have di/erent logical forms. Notably, stage-level predicates involve an event argument (Kratzer %!!)). Alternately (Chierchia %!!)), both types of predicateswere viewed as involving a situation argument, but only individuallevel predicates were considered to enter the logical form with a generic operator that binds the situation argument inducing the e/ect of permanency, which is characteristic of individual-level predicates. We will show how both di/erences in logical form have been abandoned, and how individual-level readings of predicates are no longer considered to be an e/ect of a hidden generic operator. Section %.(.( addresses the related question of the role played by unboundedness and plurality in the generic interpretation. It concludes that sentences with overt quanti-cational adverbs are to be distinguished from the generic reading of sentences without overt adverbs. +is argues for entirely reconsidering the view according to which genericity is a consequence of a hidden generic and/or habitual operator. Section %.(.. addresses the question of the dispositional reading of generic sentences according to which generic sentences involve a hidden abilitative operator can. Here again, contrasting the available interpretations of overt and covert can, the issue of the interpretation and nature of such hidden quanti-ers is addressed. ".%." ILP–SLP distinction ".%."." !e distinction %.(.%.%.% +e conceptual distinction In %!"', Milsark established a distinction between state descriptive and property descriptive predicates. Milsark's distinction is essentially temporal: property predicates permanently characterize an entity, whereas state-level predicates denote non-permanent, or accidental properties. In Milsark's terms (Milsark %!"": (%(): . . . states are conditions in which an entity -nds itself and which are subject to change without there being an essential alteration of the entity . . . [Properties] are descriptions which name some trait possessed by the entity and which is assumed to be more or less permanent or at least to be such that some signi-cant change in the character of the entity will result if the description is altered . . . !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi .' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete Carlson (%!""b) uses the terms stage-level and individual-level predicates (SLP/ILP), which correspond to, respectively, the state-level and the property predicates of Milsark. +e major novelty of Carlson's view is that the distinction is explicitly stated to correspond to the ontological di/erence between the domains onwhich the predicates operate. Stage-level predicates operate on the domain of stages of individuals and individual-level predicates operate on the individuals themselves. In Carlson's terms (Carlson %!"!: )"): . . . [+e ILP/SLP] distinction is correlated with the sort of entity the predicate meaningfully applies to. If the predicate speaks of general characteristics, or dispositions, we represent it as applying to a set of objects. If something more ,eeting is intended, somehow more temporary, and in some sense less intrinsic to the nature of a given individual, the predicate is represented as denoting a set of stages.+is distinction is intended to correspond to the basically atemporal nature of individuals as opposed to their time-bound stages . . . Carlson's distinction between two types of domains has seen greater popularity in the subsequent syntactic and semantic literature on SLP-ILP, as the issue of the lexical, logical, and conceptual representation of the predicates is overtly raised by assuming that their domains contain either stages of individuals or individuals themselves. At the lexical and logical level, the question arises as to how this distinction emerges in the grammar and how it must be coded in the logical form. %.(.%.%.( +e conceptual distinction in the grammatical realm +e conceptual distinction between SLP and ILP is re,ected in grammatical distinctions. In particular, bare plural subjects have an existential interpretation with SLPs only ((&)a) vs (&)b)). (&)) a. Firemen are available. (existential reading possible) b. Firemen are altruistic. Only SLPs can be used in the 'there'-coda ((&&a) vs (&&a)). (&&) a. +ere were men naked. b. *+ere were men blond. Only SLPs can combine with locative modi-ers ((&"a) vs (&"b)), be complements of perception verbs ((&#a) vs (&#b)), and be used as depictives ((&!a) vs (&!b)). (&") a. Maria was friendly in the car. b. *Maria was tall in the car. (&#) a. Maria saw Susan sick. b. *Maria saw Susan tall. (&!) a. Maria sat tired in the waiting room. b. *Maria sat blond in the waiting room. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .) of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction .) +e question thus arises as to how to interpret these facts, and what are the logical forms. %.(.%.%.. +e conceptual distinction implemented In view of these facts, Chierchia (%!!)) argues that ILPs are intrinsically generic. Chierchia posits a GEN operator which quanti-es over spatio-temporally bounded situations. According to the dyadic quanti-er analysis (e.g. Krifka et al. %!!)), GEN is analyzed as a tripartite quanti-cational structure, consisting of a quanti-er, a restrictive clause and a nuclear scope; see ("$): ("$) GEN [restrictor] [matrix] GEN is an unselective quanti-er à la Lewis (%!")), that can bind any free variable. For clarity, for the rest of the introduction we specify the variable over which GEN quanti-es for each of the cases discussed. According to the analysis proposed inChierchia, a sentence like ("%a) is analyzed as in ("%b). Here C is a free variable for 'contextually relevant situations'. GEN quanti-es over such relevant situations, and in all these relevant situations John is intelligent. +e permanent character of the predicate intelligent is captured via the generic quanti-cation on all relevant situations that involve John. Relevant situations are those situations that require 'intelligence'. ("%) a. John is intelligent. b. GEN s [C(john,s)] [intelligent(john,s)] In section (%.(.(.%) we propose an alternative view, which interprets the lack of spatiotemporal localization of ILP properties in terms of property unboundedness, and considers the latter as a source of the generic interpretation (rather than positing a hidden quanti-er GEN). !e Generic Book also addressed the question of the lexical representation of these predicates, a question to which Kratzer's paper (Kratzer %!!)) provides an answer which has been the focus of much debate in the subsequent years. Adopting a Davidsonian view according to which only eventive predicates have an event argument (whereas stative predicates do not), the distinction between SLPs and ILPs was reinterpreted as cutting across events and states: states were considered to be ILPs and events to be SLPs (although it was very quickly noted that some states are also SLPs, like 'be drunk', see discussion in Fernald ($$$ and below). +is distinction was thus implemented in terms of the presence or absence of an event argument in the logical form of SLP and ILP sentences. Kratzer assumes that generic sentences (more precisely, characterizing sentences) are to be analyzed as tripartite structures, as in ("$). Speci-cally for characterizing sentences with a singular inde-nite, along the lines of Heim (%!#(), the author assumes that a free variable is introduced in the LF by the inde-nite. +e analysis !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .& of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi .& Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete of sentence ("(a) is given in ("(b), in which a silent generic quanti-er translated as 'always' in the LF is provided. ("() a. When a Moroccan knows French, she knows it well. (Kratzer %!!): %(!) b. Always x [Moroccan (x) " know French (x)] [know well (x)] Kratzer notes the ungrammaticality of (".). (".) *When Mary knows French, she knows it well. +e problem here is that when the characterizing sentence does not involve an inde-nite DP, the quanti-er has no variable to bind in its scope. Within this framework the ungrammaticality of (".) is accounted for by appealing to the principle of prohibition agains vacuous quanti-cation ("'), given in Kratzer (%!!): %.%). ("') For every quanti-er Q, there must be a variable x such that Q binds an occurrence of x in both its restrictive clause and its nuclear scope. In (".) there is no variable that the quanti-er could bind in both the restrictive clause and the nuclear scope, and thus the sentence is predicted to be ungrammatical. Remarkably, acceptability is restored if know French is replaced with speak French, as in (")). (")) When Mary speaks French, she speaks French well. +e contrast between (".) and (")) is explained by assuming that SLPs (like speak) have an additional Davidsonian argument.+is argument provides a variable for the spatio-temporal location of the eventuality that the predicate speak describes. Along the lines of Davidson, this argument is missing for ILPs. +e resulting LF for (")) is given in ("&). ("&) Always s [speak (Mary, French, s) ] [speak -well (Mary, French, s)] ".%.".% ILP/SLP in the recent semantic debate In pursuing the line of research initiated by Kratzer's paper, the debate around ILP and SLP has become part of the debate on events (considered as SLPs) and states (considered as ILPs), which has focused on establishing whether and to what extent the correlation initiated by Kratzer (shown in ("")) holds. ("") +e view of SLP/ILP at the time of!e Generic Book ILP statives no event argument SLP eventives event argument %.(.%.(.% Revisitation of the twofold distinction: ILP statives It is easy to note that the correlation between ILPs and states does not always go through as there are SLP states, like 'be on the boat', etc. (see Fernald ($$$). Reconsidering the twofold distinction between ILPs and SLPs, Jäger (($$%) has identi-ed multiple classes based !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ." of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction ." on consideration of three features. +e -rst is (%) the ability to obtain an existential readingwith bare plural subjects. In the table that follows, we posit that a predicate has a feature [WS] if and only if it admits an existential reading of the subject.+e second feature (() pertains to the ability to occur as the in-nite complement of a perception verb. If the predicate concerned has this ability, the feature [PR] is used. +irdly (.), if the predicate denotes a transitory property, the feature [TR] is used. By combining these three features, eight classes are identi-ed. [WS] [PR] [TR] Example Type of eventuality A + + + shout, hear eventive B + + ) stand, sit, lie eventive C + ) + available eventive D + ) ) situated at this river eventive E ) + + naked, drunk, sick eventive F ) + ) to tower over eventive G ) ) + love, hate, know states H ) ) ) to have blue eyes statives +e split between classes G and H is particularly important, since it points to the fact that the class of so-called 'states' needs to be further re-ned. However, this re-nement is not visible in the logical form, as Jäger (($$%) assumes that all predicates have an event argument. In particular, he argues that the Davidsonian argument of statives ranges over time slices of possible worlds, and that these cannot be the object of perception. %.(.%.(.( In defense of the Davidsonian view Katz (($$$) is a true defender of the Davidsonian view, which claims that only eventives are equipped with an event argument.+is view contrasts with the neo-Davidsonian view (Parsons ($$$), according to which all predicates, eventives and statives, are equipped with an event argument. Katz, unlike Jäger (($$%) does not tease apart states from statives. He simply uses the label 'statives' for verbs both like love, know (Jäger's class G) and have blue eyes (Jäger's class H). Focusing on adverb modi-cation, he argues that statives should not be treated on a par with eventives. His well-known argument is based on the distribution of adverbs (see e.g. Katz ($$$, ($$., ($$#). Along with Jackendo/ (%!"(), Katz (($$.) observes that there are two types of adverbs: S-Adverbs that combine at the sentence level and modify propositions ("#), and VP-adverbs that combine at the VP level and are predicate modi-ers ("!). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .# of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi .# Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete ("#) a. John probably loved Mary. b. John probably kissed Mary. ("!) a. *John loved Mary quickly. b. John kissed Mary quickly. Katz further notes that while S-adverbs can combine with both eventive ("#b) and stative predicates ("#a), the latter type can only combine with events ("!b) and not with statives ("!a). He further observes that there are no VP adverbs that can combine with states/statives but not with events. He calls this phenomenon 'stative adverb gap'. According to the author, this shows that statives are not equipped with an event argument. +e reasoning goes as follows. According to the neo-Davidsonians (i.e. on the assumption that all predicates, including statives have an event argument), verbs (#$a) and VP adverbs (#$b) denote predicates of eventualities. VP-adverbial modi-cation is thus simple conjunction, as illustrated in the following derivation (Katz, ($$.: ')") ('<' indicates temporal precedence). (#$) a. John leave !e[leave(e, John)] b. slowly !P!e[P(e)&slow(e)] c. John le0 slowly !e[leave(e,John) & slow(e) & e < now] +e conclusion follows that if states were equipped with an event argument, the derivation should go through and ("!a) would have to be acceptable, contrary to fact. +e picture is thus identical to that earlier proposed by Kratzer (%!!)). %.(.%.(.. Kimian states As mentioned, neo-Davidsonians, and more precisely, Parsonians (Parsons ($$$), argue instead that all eventualities (i.e. events and states, see Bach %!#&) are equipped with an event argument (see e.g. Dölling ($$); Higginbotham ($$); Rothstein ($$)). Followers of this view give up the assumption that eventualities are located in space and suggest, for instance, that 'eventualities are abstract entities with constitutive participants and with a constitutive relation to the temporal dimension' (Ramchand, ($$): ."(). In this framework, various authors have noted that statives can be modi-ed by adverbs. (#%) a. John was a Catholic with great passion in his youth. (Jäger ($$%) b. Dan is in the country illegally. (Mittwoch ($$)) c. +e board is coarsely grooved. (Parsons ($$$) (Maienborn ($$%, ($$., ($$', ($$") defends the idea that adverb modi-cation can occur with statives at the price of a coercion of the predicate from stative to eventive. She argues that (#%a) should be interpreted as describing a passionate way of John !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) .! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction .! living his Catholicism. Maienborn thus proposes considering statives: as Kimian states (Kim %!&!, %!"&). (#() Kimian states: K-states are abstract objects for the exempli-cation of a property P at a holder x and a time t. Maienborn identi-es someontological properties ofKimian states and some linguistic diagnostics. (#.) Ontological properties a. K-states are not accessible to direct perception and have no location in space b. K-states are accessible to (higher) cognitive operations c. K-states can be located in time (#') Linguistic diagnostics a. K-states expressions cannot serve as in-nitival complements of perception verbs and do not combine with locative modi-ers (#)a) b. K-states are accessible for anaphoric reference (#)b) c. K-states can combine with temporal modi-ers (#)c) (#)) a. *John saw Mary know French. b. Carolin Carolin is is wütend. angry. Das +is wird will bald soon vorbei over sein. be c. Carolin Carolin war was gestern/immer/zweimal yesterday/always/twice müde. tired In recentwork, Rothmayr (($$!) has argued thatDavidsonian events are derived from Kimian states.+is is discussed by Moltmann, in the present volume, in her research dealing with states, statives, and Kimian states. ".%.".' ILP/SLP in the recent pragmatic debate In a recent paper, Magri (($$!) proposes a pragmatic view of the distinction between SLP and ILP predicates. Following Chierchia (%!!)), he recognizes that there are di/erences between the two types of predicates that surface in the grammar (he acknowledges the distinctions provided, in (&))–(&!)). However, Magri claims that there is no di/erence at the level of the logical form (in particular, all types of eventualities, statives, and eventives are equipped with an event argument), and that the grammatical di/erences are predicted on the basis of calculation of inferences that appeal to common knowledge. As for the predicate tall, the ILP interpretation is calculated in the following way. If we look at the entire set of possible worlds, there is no di/erence between ILPs like : Maienborn subscribes to the distinction between states and statives and assumes that the latter only are to be treated separately. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '$ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi '$ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete tall and SLPs like available.+ere are worlds in which John is available only at some times in his lifespan and there are also worlds in which John is tall only at some times in his lifespan. +e di/erence between the two categories emerges as soon as we restrict ourselves to consideration of worlds compatible with common knowledge. Magri argues that there are indeed worlds compatible with common knowledge where John is available only at some times in his lifespan, whereas there are no worlds compatible with common knowledge where John is tall only at some times in his life. Magri (($$!) formulates the assumption (#&): (#&) +ere is no world compatible with common knowledge [. . . ] where John happens to be tall at some times in his life only but not at some others. As a generalization,Magri states a rule for what he calls the 'homogeneous' predicates. (#") A predicate is homogeneous w.r.t. a Restrictor if and only if there is no world compatible with common knowledge where some elements in the Restrictor satisfy the Predicate and some others don't (i.e. (##) (Magri, ($$!: ("%) is not allowed for homogeneous predicates). (##) Predicate Restrictor For the predicate be tall, the Restrictor part contains the times at which John is alive. +e Predicate part contains the times at which John is tall. Magri considers various cases, including the following contrast (#!): (#!) a. ??John is sometimes tall. b. John is sometimes available. By calculation of the implicatures associated with homogeneous predicates, Magri explain the oddness of (#!a) in the following manner. (!$) a. Because of the existential Q-adverb, (#!a) triggers the scalar implicature that John is not always tall b. But common knowledge entails that, if John is sometimes tall, then he must always be tall by assumption (#&) c. +e oddness of (#!a) thus follows from the mismatch between the implicature (!$a) and the common knowledge (!$b) !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction '% Magri captures the ILP/SLP distinction within a broader perspective that includes other cases like (!%). Its oddness is explained by the reasoning in (!() that parallels that in (!$). (!%) ?? Some Italians come from a wonderful country. (!() a. +e use of some triggers the scalar implicature that not all Italians come from a wonderful country b. But common knowledge entails that all Italians come from the same country (which is here described as wonderful) (#&) c. +e oddness of (!() thus follows from themismatch between the implicature and the common knowledge Magri's theory thus extends to a variety of cases beyond genericity, and sheds a new light on the nature of ILPs, which are explained within a more general theory of homogeneous predicates and calculation of implicatures associated with such predicates. %.(.%...% Summary To conclude, the table below summarizes the developments that the foundational twofold distinction has undergone in the debate that !e Generic Book has initiated. Author Stative/eventive ILP/SLP Event argument Kratzer/Katz Stative ILP No Eventive SLP Yes Jäger Eventives (classes A–F) SLP Yes States (class G) SLP Yes Statives (class H) ILP Yes Maienborn Eventives (not at issue) Yes Kimian states (not at issue) No Magri Eventives/Statives ILP/SLP Yes ".%.% Unboundedness and plurality ".%.%." Unboundedness %.(.(.%.% Unboundedness in!e Generic Book and before A property of characterizing sentences which has o0en been regarded as essential to their generic meaning is !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi '( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete temporal unboundedness, namely the property by which such a sentence is not true relative to a time interval with de-nite bounds, but rather relative to an inde-nitely large interval, or even in a timeless way.*; +e relevant observation has been that generics cannot be felicitously modi-ed by adverbs denoting particular temporal locations, unlike sentences that report singular episodes, as illustrated by the contrast in acceptability between (!.) and (!') (a question mark before a sentence indicates oddness): (!.) Dogs were barking at . pm. (!') ?Dogs bark today. Temporal unboundedness is intuitively related to the law-like or nomic character of generics (Dahl %!")), another property that has been considered essential to such sentences. Laws indeed do not refer to singular events but rather express regular patterns of occurrence of certain types of events; as such, their truth is not relative to bounded time intervals, unlike the truth of sentences reporting singular events. For the sake of precision, and to avoid misunderstanding, we should note that the particular type of generic meaning called reference to a kind in Krifka et al. (%!!): (), which consists of kind-referring DPs, is in fact compatible with predications specifying a temporal localization, as shown by (!)) and (!&): (!)) Potatoes were imported to Europe at the end of the XVI century. (!&) +e dodo became extinct in the late XVII century. Such sentences, however, should be disregarded as irrelevant: they involve kindreferring DPs in subject position (the bare plural potatoes and the singular de-nite the dodo) and report particular episodes concerning the kinds referred to, where the episodes in question can be naturally ascribed a bounded temporal location; it is indeed these episodes which are ascribed a temporal location in (!)) and (!&) by the use of time adverbials.+us, the temporal location in (!)) and (!&) does not provide a case against temporal unboundedness as a characterizing feature of genericity. In passing, we should also note that unboundedness is arguably a characterizing feature of generically interpreted DPs as well, as shown by the contrast in acceptability between (!"a) and (!"b) (from Carlson %!#(): (!") a. Desks that have metal tops are increasingly rare. (= Carlson's [()b]) b. ?Desks that Bill is looking at right now are increasingly rare. (= Carlson's [(&b]) On the one hand, the relative clause in the bare plural subject of (!"a) expresses the general property of having metal tops, through which the kind desks can be restricted *; Here we do not concern ourselves with spatial unboundedness, which has also been claimed to be characteristic of genericity. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '. of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction '. to a particular subkind, i.e. desks that have metal tops. In (!"b), on the other hand, the relative clause in the bare plural subject refers to a particular episode which is located at the time of utterance by the temporal adverbial right now.+e introduction of such temporal bounds is incompatiblewith the subjectDPbeing interpreted generically, i.e. as a kind-referring DP. Given that the predicate of (!"b) can be meaningfully applied only to kind-referring subjects, and given further that the subject of (!"b) fails to refer to any kind, the sentence turns out to be unacceptable. We thus seem entitled to conclude that generic DPs too require unboundedness. +e importance that has been attached to unboundedness as an essential property of generics is apparent by considering Chierchia's (%!!)) arguments for classifying individual-level predicates (ILPs) as inherent generics. +e empirical evidence on which Chierchia bases his view crucially incorporates the property of nonlocalizability displayed by predicates like be French, as opposed to episodic predicates like be tired. Note the contrast in acceptability between (!#) and (!!), which is strictly parallel to the contrast considered at the outset between (!.) and (!'). (!#) Jean was tired this morning. (!!) ?Jean is French today. Chierchia's point is that an ILP predicate like 'be French' contributes a type of property predication to the sentence meaning which does not allow for temporal restrictions, and thus patterns with generic predications like (!') above.We consider several questions in the following sections, including: how is the unboundedness property that scholars have recognized both in generics and in ILPs to be properly understood?How essential is the role that unboundedness plays in the emergence of generic readings? Is unboundedness a su3cient factor for an account of howgenericmeaning is generated, or must we invoke a generic operator or quanti-er of some sort to make such an account work? %.(.(.%.( Unboundedness as an e/ect of a generic operator Webegin by considering what can be fairly seen as the most common view about characterizing sentences, i.e. the idea that their generic meaning is obtained as the e/ect of an underlying operator or quanti-er which is not phonologically realized but which is still active in the composition of the sentence meaning. On this view, the unboundedness property of generics, if considered at all, is taken as an e/ect of the underlying operator. To cite just a few representative examples of this view, Lawler (%!"(), Carlson (%!""b), Farkas and Sugioka (%!#.), Heim (%!#(), and most of the contributions in Carlson and Pelletier (%!!)) all proposed accounts of generics based on such covert operators or quanti-ers. Much of the evidence for these proposals came from the interpretation of English simple present tense sentences with dynamic predicates, like (%$$): (%$$) Mary smokes. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi '' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete Such sentences cannot be interpreted as reporting one single episode of the type described by the verb (unlike English progressive sentences), but can only be interpreted as generalizations over episodes of that type. +e common idea pursued by these authors is that the generalization in question is e/ected through a syntactically covert operator, which in some proposals operates at the level of the verb phrase, thus deriving an individual-level predicate from a basic stage-level predicate (Carlson %!""b), while in some others operates at the level of the sentence (Farkas and Sugioka %!#.; Heim %!#(; Carlson and Pelletier %!!)), where it acts as a dyadic generic quanti-er with syntactic and semantic properties similar to the ones of the quanti-cational adverb always. To illustrate the di/erence between these two types of analysis, we consider what logical forms are predicted by each for the sentence (%$$). According to Carlson (%!""b), (%$$) is analyzed as a simple subject-predicate structure in which the subject DPMary refers to the individualMary herself, as opposed to any temporally bounded stage of this individual (e.g. the temporally bounded stage ofMary consisting ofMary smoking a cigarette on a particular occasion), and the episodic or stage-level verb smokes is shi0ed to an individual-level predicate via a monadic operator Gn, whose semantic contribution is constrained as follows (here, xo and xs are sorted variables which range over objects and stages respectively). Where P is a stage-level predicate, e.g. P = !xs. smoke* (xs), applying Gn to the intension of P yields the object-level predicate Gn("P) = !xo. [Gn("!xs.smoke*(xs))](xo). If a sentence S is translated as [Gn("!xs.P*(xs))](xo), the truth of S requires that there be stages of the object xo which have the property !xs.P*(xs). Sentence (%$$) is translated as the formula (%$%), whose intuitive interpretation is given by the paraphrase below: (%$%) [Gn ("!xs.smoke*(xs))](Mary) +e individual Mary has the property of generally or habitually smoking. By the semantics of Gn given above, no requirement on the number of episodes in which Mary smokes is imposed by the truth of the predication that Mary habitually smokes-the only requirement is that there has been at least one such episode. While this might well appear too weak for the example at hand, this weakness was meant to account for the great variability in 'quanti-cational force' of habituals, which has been recognized since Lawler (%!"(). Carlson's idea was that a speci-cation of the number of episodes which should be necessary for the truth of a habitual sentence cannot be the business for a semantic theory of generics but must be le0 to extra-semantic considerations. According to the dyadic quanti-er analysis (e.g. Krifka et al. %!!)), (%$$) is to be analyzed as a tripartite quanti-cational structure of the formGEN(restrictor; matrix), as in (%$(): !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ') of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction ') (%$() GENs [s is suitable for Mary smoking] [ Mary smokes in s] All/most possible situations s which are suitable for Mary smoking are such that Mary indeed smokes in s. Here GEN only binds a situation variable, the restrictor, i.e. the property of being a situation suitable forMary smoking is a contextually supplied property that constrains the domain of GEN, and thematrix is the property of being a situation in whichMary smokes. Since it is treated as an unselective quanti-er (see ("$)), in other cases GEN may bind individual variables as well, e.g. when inde-nite DPs occur in the restrictor, as in the sentence (%$.), whose logical representation is given in (%$'): (%$.) A cat has a tail. (%$') GEN x, s [x is a cat in s] [x has a tail in s] All normal individuals x and situations s such that x is a cat in s are such that x has a tail in s. +ere are di/erences between the account based on the VP-level monadic operator and the one based on the dyadic operator, discussed by Carlson (%!##) and Krifka et al. (%!!)), who both take the latter to be superior. One phenomenon that has played a crucial role in determining the switch fromCarlson'smonadic operator to the dyadic operatorGEN is the ambiguity of (%$)).+is sentence has two di/erent generic readings. On one reading (referred to as 'Reading %' below), the sentence means that hurricanes in general have the property of arising in that part of the Paci-c which is demonstratively referred to, and on this reading the sentence is false. On the other reading (reported as 'Reading (' below), which corresponds to a prosodic pattern where focus is placed on hurricanes, the sentence means that there are hurricanes that arise in the part of the Paci-c referred to, and on this reading the sentence is true. (%$)) Hurricanes arise in this part of the Paci-c. Reading %: 'In general hurricanes arise in this part of the Paci-c.' Reading (: '+is part of the Paci-c is such that there are hurricanes that arise in it.' Carlson's original theory is not equipped to dealwith e/ects of prosody on logical form and only predicts the reading of (%$)) in which the BP subject is interpreted generically, with thewhole sentence reporting a property of the kind hurricanes (Reading %). +is reading, which corresponds to the normal out-of-the-blue intonation of (%$)), is captured by the following analysis: (%$&) [Gn("!xs.arise-in-this-part-of-Paci-c(xs))](hurricanes) +e problematic reading of (%$)), i.e. Reading (, would be captured by having the DP this part of the Paci*c come out as the logical subject of the sentence and by having its surface position abstracted over by a ! operator, thus generating the logical predicate !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '& of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi '& Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete !xs.hurricanes arise in xs. +e latter is fully translated as !xs.!ys[R(ys, hurricanes) " arise-in(ys, xs)]. +is stage-level predicate would then be shi0ed to an individuallevel predicate via the Gn operator before being applied to the logical subject. +e -nal result would be the following formal analysis, given along with an informal paraphrase: (%$") [Gn("!xs.!ys[R(ys, hurricanes)"arise-in(ys, xs)])](this part of the Paci-c) +is part of the Paci-c has the property of generally having hurricanes arising in it. +is analysis, however, is out of reach of Carlson's original theory. +e theory based on the dyadic operator, on the other hand, can naturally handle focus and e/ects of prosody on meaning, so it can easily account for the problematic reading of (%$)) once it is supplemented with the standard assumption that focused material goes in the nuclear scope (see the Standard Prosodic Hypothesis of Asher and Pelletier, this volume).+us the logical form of (%$)) will be as follows: (%$#) GENs [s is suitable for something arising in this part of the Paci-c] [there are hurricanes that arise in this part of the Paci-c in s] +e formal accounts that we have considered thus far converge on the idea that generic interpretations result from an underlying generic operator, the semantics of which has been thought of either in terms of an aspectual shi0 from stage-level interpretations to individual-level interpretations of verbal predicates, or in terms of a (quasi) universal quanti-cation over situations/individuals. We want to emphasize that the proponents of such operator-based accounts have also generally recognized the importance of a notion of unboundedness for a theory of genericity, at least for the sake of a descriptive characterization of generics. Proponents of such accounts, however, will typically view unboundedness as an e/ect of the underlying generic operator, while they will not see unboundedness as a primitive factor playing a role in the construction of generic interpretations. It is interesting, in this respect, to consider the position of Carlson (%!##), which gives us the occasion to bring imperfectivity to the fore. Departing from the original proposal in his dissertation, Carlson (%!##) assumes a dyadic operator relating a restrictive part, which he calls related constituent, and a matrix-exactly the same idea that would be systematized later in!e Generic Book. However, he also entertains a notion of unboundedness in order to characterize generics in opposition to universal statements that contingently hold of bounded circumstances. He considers the contrast in acceptability between (%$!a) and (%$!b): (%$!) a. A cat runs across my lawn every day. b. ?A cat runs across my lawn every day this week and last. What is at stake in (%$!a) and (%$!b) is the possibility of an unbounded reading of the universally quanti-ed time adverbial. +is is only possible in (%$!a), not in (%$!b), where the adverbial must express universal quanti-cation over a bounded !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '" of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction '" domain of days, namely the days in this week and in last week. As a consequence of the bounded interpretation of the time adverbial in (%$!b), only an episodic reading of the sentencewould be possible, if it weren't the case that the English present tense does not allow for episodic readings (i.e. event-in-progress readings) of eventive sentences. As a consequence, (%$!b) is not acceptable. Carlson's point can perhaps be better appreciated if we consider the past tense counterparts of (%$!a) and (%$!b), which are both acceptable: (%%$) a. A cat ran across my lawn every day. b. A cat ran across my lawn every day this week and last. Only (%%$a) can be interpreted as a generic, stating that on every day within a past situation lacking speci-ed bounds a cat ran across my lawn. +e sentence need not be so interpreted, as it can also have an episodic reading in which it refers to a past bounded situation and quanti-es over a -nite set of days within this situation. Crucially, however, if it is interpreted generically, it makes a nomic statement which is not bounded to a -nite set of actual days in the past. Sentence (%%$b), on the other hand, can only be accepted as a universal quanti-cation contingently holding of a bounded situation: for every day within this week and last week, it turned out that a cat ran across my lawn on that day ((%%$b) only has the meaning of an accidental generalization). Yet other examples discussed by Carlson, which nicely highlight the relevance of unboundedness to the availability of generic meaning, are the following sentences involving clausal adverbials instead of quanti-ed time adverbials in the role of the related constituent: (%%%) a. John jumped when the -re alarm went o/. [Bounded, Episodic] b. John eats when he gets hungry. [Unbounded, Habitual] Unfortunately, Carlson is not very explicit on the notion of unboundedness that he makes use of. He suggests that in (%$!a) this notion cannot be taken to be unboundedness of the domain of the universal quanti-er, i.e. quanti-cation over an unlimited number of days, and that the notion in question is rather related to intensionality in this context. His somewhat vague remark is that '(t)he beginnings of a satisfactory analysis would treat the meaning of the phrase [every day] in (%$!a) as a function from contexts to all days in that context, and it is this meaning that is related in the generic interpretation of (%$!a)' (Carlson %!##). Before moving to the next section, we note that in languages with a perfective/imperfective distinction morphologically realized in their aspectual systems, examples (%%$a) and (%%%b), on the one hand, and examples (%%$b) and (%%%a), on the other hand, would be translated using di/erent aspectual forms, namely the imperfective for (%%$a) and (%%%b) (past for the former, present for the latter), and the perfective (past) for (%%$b) and (%%%a), as shown by the following sentences from Italian: !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '# of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi '# Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete (%%() a. Ogni giorno un gatto attraversava correndo il mio prato. Every day a cat crossed(.sg,past impf) running the my lawn Every day a cat used to run across my lawn. [Habitual] b. John mangia quando gli viene fame. John eat(.sg,pres impf) when to-him come(.sg,pres impf) hunger John eats when he gets hungry. [Habitual] (%%.) a. Ogni giorno di questa settimana e di quella scorsa un gatto ha attraversato correndo il mio prato. Every day of this week and of that past a cat has crossed running the my lawn Every day of this week and of the last week a cat ran across my lawn. [nonHabitual] b. John ha saltato quando l'allarme anti-incendio ha smesso. Johnhas jumped(past perf) when the alarmanti--re has stopped(past perf) John jumped when the *re alarm went o+. [non-Habitual] Imperfectively marked verb forms, as in (%%(a) and (%%(b) above, are the natural option for expressing generic meaning in Italian. Only imperfective forms are compatible with an unbounded temporal interpretation in this language, while perfective (past) forms locate an eventuality within the limits of a bounded situation, even in sentences containing a universally quanti-ed time adverbial, e.g. (%%.a) above.** Imperfective forms allow for both episodic (event-in-progress) and generic interpretations, as shown by the ambiguity of (%%') between the two readings given below: (%%') Gianni guidava un'auto sportiva. Gianni drive(.sg, past impf) a sports car Reading %. 'Gianni was driving a sports car.' Reading (. 'Gianni used to drive a sports car.' +e di/erence between the two interpretations seems to reduce to the following fact: in the episodic reading the sentence is interpreted relative to a small time interval (e.g. yesterday at . pm), in the generic reading it is interpreted relative to an interval lacking speci-ed temporal bounds (Gianni's lifespan? Gianni's youth?). It is thus tempting to assume that the di/erence between the two readings of (%%') is not a matter of semantic ambiguity a/ecting some part of the sentence, or a matter of the presence ** As such, perfective forms in Italian are unable to express generic meaning. By this remark, we do not intend to exclude the possibility of referring to a habit through a perfective form, as in Gianni ha fumato la pipa per tutta la sua vita ('Gianni smoked a pipe all his life').+e natural reading of this sentence refers to a habit of Gianni's (in a perfective way). It should be mentioned, however, that it is one thing to achieve reference to a habit, and quite another thing to express a habitual meaning: the former admittedly can be done through a perfective sentence, but the latter can only be done by using an imperfective sentence. For example, the perfective sentence given above, though referring to a habit, does not express generic or habitual meaning for one thing, it lacks the intensional character that true generics have. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) '! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction '! or absence of a generic operator, but that it is uniquely due to a di/erence in the size of the interval relative to which the sentence is interpreted. +is observation points to a view in which temporal unboundedness plays a primary role in determining the emergence of generic meaning, as will be discussed in the following section. %.(.(.%.. Genericity and unboundedness: a pragmatic issue +e alternative view that we consider in this section is that themain factor responsible for the emergence of genericmeaning is a general property of unboundedness, not the presence of a generic operator in the logical form of the sentence. Declerck (%!##) is a representative of this view. +e starting point of Declerck's analysis is signi-cantly di/erent from the traditional one, which is mainly concerned with the generative issue of how generic readings should be derived in compositional semantics, and is rather concerned with the processing issue of how speakers interpret certain sentences as episodic and others (even though they may be structurally similar to the former) as generic, as illustrated by the interpretive contrast between (%%)) and (%%&): (%%)) +e boy is cunning. (%%&) +e fox is cunning. Declerck's idea is that there is no deep di/erence in logical formbetween non-generics and generics. In particular, the latter do not di/er from the former in having a hidden generic operator which should be made explicit at logical form, but the di/erence between them has to do with whether the sentence interpretation is pragmatically restricted to a bounded domain or not.+e interpretive rules that are relevant for the contrast at hand are claimed to be derivable from the Gricean maxims, speci-cally the maxim of Quantity. On this approach, the unbounded character of generics ultimately depends on interpretive rules requiring that the information conveyed by an utterance be maximized (the maximal-set principle, requiring that the maximal set of entities allowed by the contextual restrictions be referred to, and the inclusiveness principle, requiring application of predication on a set X to all members of X; see Declerck %!##: #.–').+ese rules interact with other rules prescribing relevance and truthfulness, whereby the 'unbounding' e/ects of the former are constrained in the appropriate contexts.+e maximizing rules account for the emergence of the generic interpretation of (%%&) (provided that in the utterance context there is no relevant individual fox immediately accessible to the hearer as the referent of the de-nite DP): by the maximal-set principle, reference is achieved to what is called the generic set of foxes, i.e. the set of all actual and possible (past and future) foxes, and by the inclusiveness principle the property of being cunning is then predicated of each individual in this unbounded set, conveying the information that being cunning is an essential property of foxes, as opposed to one that is contingently predicated of some foxes only. What prevents a similar generic interpretation of (%%)) is the interaction between themaximizing rules and other rules prescribing truthfulness and relevance: !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )$ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi )$ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete an unbounded interpretation of the subject DP the boy as referring to the generic set of boys would in principle be possible, but ascribing the property of being cunning to all possible boys would result in a false statement, hence the hearer goes for a weaker interpretation here, one in which reference is made to a contextually relevant boy (provided that there is one in the immediate context), of which the property of being cunning is predicated. Declerck's analysis relating genericity to unboundedness can explain why sentences like (%%"a) and (%%"b) are not acceptable as generics: (%%") a. ?Twelve cats are intelligent when they have blue eyes. b. ?A cat has a tail these days. Sentence (%%"a) is claimed to be odd because it is numerically bounded by the indefinite 'twelve cats', while if we remove the numerical determiner 'twelve' and leave the bare plural 'cats' in place, we obtain an acceptable generic sentence:*1 (%%#) Cats are intelligent when they have blue eyes. +e kind of oddness observed in (%%"b) above, on the other hand, is explained as follows: by the pragmatic rules of interpretation, the clause a cat has a tail is interpreted as implying that any arbitrary cat has a tail, i.e. having a tail is a property which is essential to cats; this character, however, is incompatible with the temporal restriction introduced by the time adverbial these days. %.(.(.%.' Problems and perspectives Unboundedness of generics with respect to time has been questioned (e.g. Krifka et al. %!!): .&) on account of the observation that at least generics from the variety of habituals are felicitously localizable to past time and present time periods, as shown in (%%!a) and (%%!b): (%%!) a. +ese days Mary smokes Marlboros. b. In those days / In the nineties Mary used to smoke Marlboros. If we are willing to pursue a characterization of generic sentences in terms of temporal unboundedness, we then face an empirical challenge posed by such examples.+e use *1 Note that a simple restriction requiring the use of BPs or singular inde-nites, however, would not work (as already noted by Krifka et al. (%!!))).+is is shown by the acceptability of ((&.): ((&.) Two friends help each other. Notice that the numeral two in ((&.) is acceptable because it does not introduce an arbitrary numerical restriction, but serves to specify that the sentence is about groups of friends containing two individuals each. Accordingly, the sentence gets the generic interpretation that any group of two friends x and y is such that x helps y. +e conclusion is that ((&.) does not pose a real problem to the unboundedness analysis. Compare the acceptability of ((&.) with the non-acceptability of ((&'), in which the numerical restriction introduced by four is not as easily motivated as the one in ((&.): ((&') ? Four friends help each other. We will not consider numerical unboundedness any further. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction )% of the time adverbials these days and in the nineties to locate Mary's habit of smoking Marlboros in (%%!a) and (%%!b) does not seem to give rise to oddness in the same way that the use of temporal modi-ers does in examples (!') and (%%"b). However, we believe that the intuition behind the idea of temporal unboundedness is valid, and examples like (%%!a) and (%%!b) simply demonstrate the necessity of suitably restricting the unboundedness requirement. Although (%%!b) shows that generics (in their subvariety of habituals) do admit temporal restrictions, we observe that not just any temporal restriction would work. For example, restriction to a particular point in time as in (%($) would not do: (%($) ? On that day at ' pmMary used to smoke Marlboros. It seems that a more appropriate way to characterize generic meaning would be to say that it is triggered whenever the reference situationwhich underlies the interpretation of the sentence has either unspeci-ed temporal bounds, or a suitably large temporal size. By further pursuing this line of thought, we could end up with a scale of generic sentences, with sentences like Dogs bark at the top of the scale (the underlying reference situation has unspeci-ed temporal bounds in these cases), and sentences like !ese days Mary smokes Marlboros somewhere lower on the same scale (the underlying reference situation has a large temporal size in these cases). To illustrate this idea, we consider some more examples from Italian. In this language, where genericity is expressed by imperfective sentences, which also allow for episodic, event-in-progress readings when the reference situation is small. Compare (%(%a)–(%(%c), which are anchored either to unbounded or to large situations and have generic meaning, with (%((a) and (%((b), which are anchored to small situations and have episodicmeaning: (%(%) a. Gianni è intelligente. Gianni is intelligent. b. Gianni suona la chitarra. Gianni plays guitar. c. In questi anni, Gianni gioca a calcio in una squadra locale. Nowadays, Gianni plays football in a local team. (%(() a. Gianni è o/eso. Gianni is o+ended. b. Gianni legge un articolo in cucina.Gianni is reading an article in the kitchen. c. ?In questi anni, Gianni è contento. ?Nowadays, Gianni is glad. Sentences (%(%a), (%(%b), unlike (%((a), (%((b), have reference situations which lack speci-ed temporal bounds, in the sense that a time adverbial could not be used in either (%(%a) or (%(%b) to constrain the size of the reference situation. For example, it would be odd to say Questa mattina Gianni è intelligente '+is morning Gianni is intelligent' orQuesta mattina Gianni suona la chitarra '+is morning Gianni plays the !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi )( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete guitar' (with the generic interpretation of the VP suona la chitarra, which is similar to the interpretation of the ILP is a guitar player); however, such constraint of the reference situation through a time adverbial is possible in (%((a), (%((b), as we could felicitously say In questo momento Gianni è o+eso 'At this moment Gianni is o/ended' or In questo momento Gianni legge un articolo in cucina 'At this moment Gianni is reading an article in the kitchen'. On the other hand, (%(%c) has a 'large size' reference situation which is constrained by the time adverbial in questi anni 'in these years', while the same adverbial gives rise to anomaly in (%((c), given that the predicate essere contento 'to be glad' denotes a set of transitory states which do not hold of year-sized intervals.+is proposal will make sense of a theory which allows for di/erent degrees of genericity. Basically, a distinction will be drawn between 'strong' generics which do not have any speci-ed temporal bounds, and 'weaker' generics which do have more constrained reference situations, although characterized by a large size. +is paves the way for empirical studies aimed at assessing the extent to which such theory is supported by real data. In conclusion, all parties recognize that some not well-de-ned property of unboundedness is central to generics. We saw above that Carlson (%!##), though proposing a dyadic operator analysis which anticipates that of Krifka et al. (%!!)), devotes much attention to a notion of unboundedness which he proposes as a feature discriminating between truly generic sentences and those which only express accidental generalizations. In this respect, it is particularly interesting to consider Krifka et al.'s perspective on Declerck's proposal to have a property of unboundedness explain the interpretation of restrictive when-clauses in generics: '[Declerck] argued that [unboundedness], rather than the presence of a generic operator, is the essence of restrictive when-clauses. We agree with his observation concerning the "unspeci-ed" nature of when-clauses, but we claim that it is the presence of a generic operator (or of explicit quanti-cational adverbs) which causes the when-clause to be "unspeci-c." ' (Krifka et al., %!!): .&). +us, the general point is that it is clear that unboundedness truly is a property characterizing generics; what is in question is whether unboundedness should be viewed as the primary notion in the semantic theory of generics or whether it is an e/ect dependent on an underlying generic operator. According to this perspective, the real alternative to the prevailing analysis based on some sort of covert generic operator is not simply to emphasize the presence of an unbounded interpretation, but rather to claim that the unbounded interpretation is not the e/ect of the semantic functioning of an ad hoc generic operator, but an independent ingredient of the semantics of generics which, by itself or in interaction with some other ingredient, produces generic meaning. An alternative of this kind, even though restricted exclusively to habitual generics, is proposed inDel Prete's paper in this volume. Del Prete considers habitual generics in Italian, typically consisting of imperfectively marked sentences. His proposal is based on amodal-temporal analysis of the morphologically overt imperfective aspect in a branching-time model, where !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ). of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction ). the semantic contribution of imperfective is a forward expansion of an input reference situation in the model of the branching futures.+is contribution of the imperfective is constant across the progressive and the generic readings of imperfective sentences, and is not speci-cally invoked to account for the intensional character of generics in particular.+e di/erence between progressive and generic readings is thus explained in terms of a di/erence in the temporal size of the input reference situation: small reference situations give rise to event-in-progress readings, where typically a singular event of the type described by the VP is considered as covering the forward extended situation, whereas large reference situations set the ground for the emergence of generic readings, where typically plural events of that type are needed to cover the forward extended situation.*2 ".%.%.% Plurality %.(.(.(.% State of the question in!e Generic Book and problems On the analysis of habituals in terms of the covert operator GEN proposed by Krifka et al. %!!), it is not trivial to explain the contrast between (%(.) and (%(') below. In particular, given that the logical form of (%(') could be either the formula (%()) or the formula (%(&), this analysismisses an explanation of the 'same object' implication of (%(') thatmakes this sentence odd-indeed this sentence, to the extent that it is acceptable, is understood as implying that John writes the same song over and over, but neither (%()) nor (%(&) predicts this implication. (%(.) When John writes a song, he goes to the Irish pub. (%(') ? John writes a song at the Irish pub. (%()) GENs[John is at the Irish pub in s] [!x [John writes x in s & x is a song in s]] 'Generally, when John is at the Irish pub, he writes a song there.' (%(&) GENs,x[John writes x in s & x is a song in s] [ John is at the Irish pub in s] 'Generally, when John writes a song, he is at the Irish pub.' A less recognized point is that Carlson's analysis in terms of the monadic operator Gnwould also have di3culties in accounting for the oddness of (%('). Carlson (%!"!) shows that the Gn analysis predicts that (%(") does not imply that there is a particular knife used by John on every occasion. +e way this prediction is borne out is by the occurrence of the existential quanti-er corresponding to a knife in the intensional context set up by Gn, as shown in the formal analysis (%(#): (%(") John eats his dinner with a knife. *2 +is type of analysis is something that, as far as we can tell, was brie,y touched on by Ferreira in his PhD dissertation (Ferreira ($$)), although he is not explicit about the role of the temporal size of the input situation in the emergence of generic readings, and mainly focuses on the role of event plurality. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi )' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete (%(#) [Gn ("!xs.!y[knife(y) " eat-dinner-with*(xs, y)])](John) '+e individual John has the property of habitually eating his dinner with a knife.' While this prediction is correct for (%("), Carlson's theory is bound to make a similar but wrong prediction for (%('), according to the formal analysis (%(!): (%(!) [Gn ("!xs.!y[song(y) " write-at-the-Irish-pub*(xs, y)])](John) '+e individual John has the property of habitually writing a song at the Irish pub.' +e latter prediction is wrong, since sentence (%(') does imply that there is a particular song written by John on every occasion. On a covert operator analysis, to account for the oddness of examples like (%(') one would need to assume that the singular inde-nite obligatorily takes scope over the generic operator in such cases, while it can scope below the generic operator in sentences like (%("). In the absence of a principled explanation of the contrast between (%(') and (%("), however, such an account could be criticized as stipulative. It is worth noting that (%('), if embedded in a suitable discourse context, no longer implies that John writes the same song over and over. One such context is provided below (Sandro Zucchi, p.c.): (%.$) Here's what John does during the day. He drinks a glass of wine at the restaurant and writes a song at the Irish pub. Our intuition is that the -rst sentence of (%.$), through the generic interpretation of the free relative what John does during the day, sets up a restriction for the interpretation of the following sentence. +e latter is thus interpreted along the lines of the paraphrase (%.%), whose logical form may plausibly involve a dyadic operator corresponding to the adverb generally, similar to Krifka's GEN, as in (%.(): (%.%) Generally, during the day, John drinks a glass of wine at the restaurant and writes a song at the Irish pub. (%.() GENs [s is during the day] [ !x!y [x is a glass of wine in s & y is a song in s & John drinks x in s & John writes y in s]] Our proposal concerning (%.$) is thus that this example bears a relation to the odd sentence (%(') which is the same relation as (%..) bears to the odd sentence (%.'): (%..) Mary smokes a cigarette a0er dinner. (%.') ?Mary smokes a cigarette. In both (%.$) and (%..), a generically interpreted time adverbial (during the day in the former, a,er dinner in the latter) sets up a restriction for a tripartite quanti-cational structure. Crucially, our claim is that such a tripartite structure is not available for simple sentences like (%(') and (%.'), which we believe, following Ferreira (($$)), !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )) of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction )) express genericity that does not depend on an underlying quanti-er. In the next section we sketch some ways to address the problem raised by (%('). +e central concept that we introduce is that of verbal plurality. %.(.(.(.( New proposals +e issue of the temporal size of the situation to which generics are anchored interacts with the orthogonal issue of verbal plurality, which we mean to refer to plurality as it manifests itself in the domain of verb predicates (Cusic %!#%; Landman ($$$; Van Geenhoven ($$'; Kratzer ($$#).+e interaction between large-size temporal anchors and verbal plurality in habituals is explored in Del Prete's paper in this volume.+e crucial point here is that not only are habituals observed to be predicated of large situations, but also that 'macro-events' are intuitively involved in such predications. In the formal semantics literature, verbal plurality has been modeled by extending Link's (%!#.a) algebraic treatment of plural and mass nouns to the event domain. Here, we consider Landman's (($$$) technical implementation, which is closely related to Krifka (Gerstner-Link and Krifka %!!.; Krifka %!!#).+roughout this section, when we talk of sums of events/individuals (also occasionally referred to as plural events/individuals), we will thus be assuming an algebraic approach such as has been familiar since Link's work. Landman (($$$) proposes dealing with a number of phenomena, in particular cumulative and distributive readings of sentences with plural subjects and/or plural objects, on the basis of the assumption that verbs can refer to plural events.+e basic idea that he pursues is to allow for an ontology with a domain of events including sums of atomic events alongside atomic events themselves, and to have verb predicates denote event sums as well as atomic events.+ematic rolesmap events, either singular or plural, onto their participants. Participants of an event sum or plural event e are individual sums or plural individuals made up by the atomic individuals which are the participants of the atomic parts of e. In other work, Van Geenhoven (($$') mainly focuses on frequentative readings of achievement and accomplishment sentences with bare plural and singular inde-nite complements. Her paper brings into focus the problem of the di/erent ways in which verb plurality and plural vs singular complements scopally interact with each other. A problem she considers that is relevant here is the wide scope of singular inde-nites with respect to for-adverbials in sentences like (%.)), as opposed to the narrow-scope reading of bare plurals in the same position-as in (%.&) (such examples had already been discussed by Verkuyl %!"( and Dowty %!"!): (%.)) Bill dialed a phone number for an hour. 'Bill dialed the same phone number over and over for an hour.' (%.&) Bill dialed phone numbers for an hour. 'Bill dialed di/erent phone numbers for an hour.' !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )& of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi )& Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete She explains the contrast between (%.)) and (%.&) by assuming a silent V-level pluralization operator which in these examples returns a plurality of dialing events, and by further assuming that singular inde-nites cannot be distributed over the atomic parts of a plural event, unlike bare plurals. +is issue is closely related to the contrast between Mary smokes a cigarette and Mary smokes cigarettes, which has been discussed in the literature on generics (this problem is considered in the papers by Cabredo Hofherr and Del Prete in this volume).+e relation between van Geenhoven's plurality-based account and habituality, however, is not developed in her paper. Kratzer's (($$#) core contribution is the Lexical Cumulativity Hypothesis (LCH), according to which verbs (as well as nouns) are born as plurals, whichmeans that they have cumulative reference in Krifka's (%!!#) sense: P has cumulative reference i/ if x is P and y is P then the sum of x and y is also P. +is is proposed as a languageuniversal property. Regarding verb predicates, Kratzer construes LCH in an eventbased framework à la Krifka–Landman.+us, lexically, verb predicates denote sums of events (with singular events as the limiting case). Note that the adoption of LCH allows prediction of the availability of plural (i.e. iterative and possibly habitual) interpretations of sentences like John jumped, notwithstanding the fact that such sentences lack overt marking of plurality on the verb. Amongst the data that Kratzer deals with, sentences with wide-scope singular inde-nites are once again crucial. Like van Geenhoven, she also focuses on the property of singular inde-nites by which they do not distribute over the atomic parts of plural events in the denotation of the verb. Generics-at least in their habitual subvariety, which is the primary focus of this section-seem to involve reference to plural events, for example the truth of (%.") seems to require a plurality of events of Mary's smoking a cigarette a0er dinner to have already occurred and another plurality of such events to be expected to occur in the future. (%.") Mary smokes a cigarette a0er dinner. +is plural feature of (%.") is in clear contrast with the singular character of the episodic sentence (%.#), which intuitively refers to a single event of Mary's smoking a cigarette a0er dinner: (%.#) At this a0er-dinner moment, Mary is smoking a cigarette. +e relation between habituality and verbal plurality has been emphasized by Ferreira (($$)), and is elaborated upon in the papers by Cabredo Hofherr, Del Prete, and Boneh and Doron in this volume. According to Ferreira, bare habituals like (%(.) above (repeated below as (%.!)), i.e. habituals with no adverbs of quanti-cation, should not be analyzed as quanti-cational tripartite structures as in the classical GENanalysis, but rather should be analyzed as involving reference to plural events, along the lines of the semi-formal paraphrase in (%'$). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )" of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction )" (%.!) When John writes a song, he goes to the Irish pub. (%'$) +e events e such that John writes a song in e are such that John goes to the Irish pub in e. Ferreira's claim is that bare habituals involve a covert plural de-nite determiner over events, rather than the covert generic operator GEN. According to Ferreira, there is a parallel between (%.!) and (%'%), which contains an overt plural de-nite description restricted by a relative clause. (%'%) In my family, the women who married a professor are happy. +e when-clause in (%.!) is claimed to be parallel to the relative clause in (%'%), in the following sense: both the when-clause and the relative clause introduce a distributive operator in the sentence, with the e/ect of ascribing the relevant property (i.e. the property of being an event in which John writes a song in (%.!), and the property of being married to a professor in (%'%)) to every atomic part of the plural event/individual referred to by the de-nite description.+is distribution to the atomic parts of the pluralities involved is shown in the formal analyses (%'() and (%'.) (" is a plural de-nite determiner, 'E' and 'X' range over plural events and individuals respectively, 'e' and 'x' over atomic events and individuals respectively, '<AT ' is the atomic part-of relation between events or individuals): (%'() "E[+e(e <AT E)(!ysong(y) " writes(John, y, e))][goes-to(Irish-pub, John,E)] (+e plural event E such that for every atomic part e of E there is a song that John writes in e is such that John goes to the Irish pub in E.) (%'.) "X[+x(x <AT X)(woman(x) " !yprofessor(y) " married(y, x))][happy(X)] (+e plural individual X such that for every atomic part x of X, x is a woman and there is a professor that xmarried, is such that X is happy.) An important piece of evidence in favor of Ferreira's analysis comes from bare habituals embedding singular inde-nite DPs, which imply that the referent of the inde-nite is the same across the di/erent atomic parts of the plural event referred to.+e relevant contrast is between the good sentence (%.!) above and the bad sentence (%'') (the same as (%(') above), whose analysis is given in (%')) (capital letters signal prosodic stress; stressed material goes into the matrix at logical form): (%'') ? John writes a song at THE IRISH PUB. (%')) "E[!ysong(y)"writes (John, y,E)][at-the-Irish-pub(John,E)] (+e plural event E such that there is a song that John writes in E is such that John is at the Irish pub in E.) Sentence (%'') is odd because it implies that John writes the same song over and over. +is is correctly predicted by the analysis (%')), as the existential quanti-er !y in this !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )# of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi )# Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete formula directly operates at the level of the plural event E, and not at the level of the atomic parts of E, unlike what happens in the analysis of (%.!) which we just saw in (%'(). Note that there is a parallel contrast between (%'%) and the odd sentence (%'&), whose analysis is given in (%'"): (%'&) ?In my family, the wives of a professor are happy. (%'") "X[!yprofessor(y) " wives(X, y)][happy(X)] (+e plural individual X such that there is a professor of which the atomic individuals in X are wives is such that X is happy.) Sentence (%'&) is also odd because it implies that in my family there are many women married to the same professor.+is is also correctly predicted by the analysis (%'"), in a structurally similarway: the existential quanti-er !y in this formula directly operates at the level of the plural individual X, and not at the level of the atomic parts of X, unlikewhat happens in (%'.).+us, according to Ferreira, only in (%.!) is the property of being an event in which John writes a song distributed over the atomic subevents of the plural event referred to, and this is achieved through the distributive operator introduced by the when-clause. On the other hand, no such distribution is possible in (%''), hence in the latter case it is not possible to have di/erent songs for di/erent writing episodes. Analogously, only in (%'%) is there distribution of the property of being married to a professor over the atomic parts of the plural individual referred to, and this is achieved through the distributive operator introduced by the relative clause. On the other hand, there is no such distribution in (%'&), hence in the latter case it is not possible to have di/erent professors for di/erent women. Ferreira also proposes an analysis of habituals with an even simpler structure than (%.!)'s, namely habituals such as (%'#), which he calls simple habituals (Ferreira ($$): !.). (%'#) Mary smokes. Not only do such habituals lack an overt Q-adverb, but they also lack a restrictive clause or any other material that could provide a restriction for a covert operator at logical form. Ferreira's claim is that simple habituals can be uttered out of the bluewith no need of an implicit restrictor for a covert operator, since they do not actually have a covert operator in the -rst place. As soon as some linguistic/non-linguistic material is supplied, however, sentences become potentially ambiguous in being interpreted both as simple habituals or as bare habituals with a covert de-nite event determiner. For example, regarding (%'#), two options seem to be possible: either the clauseMary smokes is used as a stand-alone sentence to express a self-standing habitual proposition, or it provides the material to be predicated of an underlying plural de-nite description of events, as in the context set up by the question (%'!). In the former case the logical form would be as in (%)$), in the latter as in (%)%): (%'!) What do your friends do a0er dinner? !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) )! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction )! (%)$) !E[smokes(Mary,E) " now ( # (E)] '+ere is a plural event E such that Mary smokes in E and the running time of E includes the present time.' (%)%) "E[+e(e <AT E)(a0er-dinner(e) " !x do(my-friends, x, e))][+e(e <AT E)(smokes(Mary, e))] '+e events e which are a0er-dinner events in whichmy friends do something are such that Mary smokes in e.' Boneh andDoron (($$#b, ($$!b) develop a view of habituality that takes into account event plurality, but casts it within a theory that relies on hidden HAB operators. Hebrew distinguishes between a simple form (%)(a) for habituality and a periphrastic form (%)(b). (%)() a. yael Yael nas'a went la-'avoda to-work ba-'otobus by-bus Yael used to go to work by bus. b. yael Yael hayt-a were nos'a go la-'avoda to-work ba-'otobus by-bus Yael used to go to work by bus. +e -rst one expresses habituality as amodal notion, that is to say as a disposition.+e periphrastic form expresses habituality as an extensional notion: repeated events are interpreted as a habit.+ey thus distinguish two operators HAB<=> andHAB?@A.+e authors de-neHAB<=> as an operator that depends on the summation of events in all the accessible worlds of the modal base MBi,w which is a set of gnomic alternatives to world w at time i, ordered with respect to an ideal world where dispositions hold inde-nitely once initiated. +ey thus claim that HAB<=> is dispositional. Crucial to their analysis is that HAB<=> requires the existence of an iteration of events which 'continues' an actual event, for each and every world of the appropriate sort. Boneh and Doron (present volume) explore the issue further, considering a variety of habitual constructions in English. Analyses that consider generic sentences as purely dispositional (i.e. not even requiring the existence of a sole instantiation) have also been developed. We turn to this issue in the next section. ".%.' Genericity and the semantics of abilities and dispositions Generic statements have been argued to express dispositions and abilities since Dahl (%!")) and later Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet (($$$). A sentence like (%).a) has been paraphrased as (%).b). (%).) a. A Ferrari goes at ($$km/ph. b. A Ferrari can go at ($$km/ph. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &$ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi &$ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete More fundamentally, abilitative and dispositional statements have been seen as intrinsically generic (Kenny %!"); Fara ($$#), since they persist beyond actions and are independent of particular circumstances. We -rst consider in subsection %.(...% sentences like (%).a), for which it can be argued that there is a covert can. We then turn to overt can in subsection %.(...( and raise the question of its interpretation in relation to tense and aspect.+ere we discuss two notions of abilities: generic and speci-c abilities. ".%.'." Covert can If generic statements are associated with a covert modal operator, then the question arises as to how this operator should be interpreted, and more speci-cally, how does it di/er from the overt one. It has been repeatedly noted that 'one of the main functions of generic sentences appears to be that of expressing capability or possibility' (Chierchia and McConnellGinet ($$$). (%)') a. John runs )$miles without ever stopping. b. John can run )$miles per hour without ever stopping. (%))) a. +is program parses complicated sentences. b. +is program can parse complicated sentences. It has also been noted that generic sentences with covert modality cannot be interpreted as those with overt ones, as the oddness of (%)&b) reveals. (%)&) a. A boat ,oats. b. ??A boat can ,oat. (Krifka et al. %!!): )')*4 +e question of the interpretation of covert modality is addressed in MenéndezBenito's paper in the present volume. %.(...%.% Menéndez-Benito's account and one amendment Menéndez-Benito (($$)) proposes that covert can is used uniquely for 'inner dispositions'. One of the major advances of this view is that it does not require the property to be actually instantiated. Stating that a boat ,oats means that a boat has the ability to ,oat in virtue of some inner property, not that a boat has necessarily ,oated. However, as noted byMenéndez-Benito (($$)), not all generic sentences work this way. For example, the immediate reading of (%)") is that John has already played the trombone. (%)") John plays the trombone. *4 It has not been previously noted that 'A boat can ,oat thanks to its concave shape' is in fact acceptable. However further discussion of this example would lead us astray from our discussion on genericity and abilities. See Mari (($%%c). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction &% Menéndez-Benito explains that in order to acquire the ability, humans must have exercised it. +is explanation nevertheless fails to predict some contrasts. Only (%)#b) means that John has already read %$$$ signs, whereas (%)#a) only means that a Chinese -ve-year-old boy is able to read %$$$ characters. In (%)#b) read has an 'agentive' interpretation. (%)#) a. A Chinese -ve-year-old boy can read %$$$ characters. b. John can read %$$$ characters. +e problem here for Menéndez-Benito account is that, although 'a Chinese -veyear-old boy' introduces an animate entity it is not required that the property be instantiated, as predicted by the account. To solve this issue, one can appeal to the question of degrees of speci-city. In the generic sentence (%)#a) the inde-nite DP introduces a non-speci-c entity. Another potential shortcoming for the account pertains to human behavior. Humans have, like robots, inner dispositions. For instance, unless a newborn has a particular abnormality, he is predisposed to smile at about fourweeks of age.When the newborn is threeweeks old, amother can utter (%)!).+e only possible interpretation, though, is that the child has already smiled and not that he will eventually smile as predicted by Menéndez-Benito's account. (%)!) My child smiles. A potential solution to these problems involves the following principle of agency maximization. (%&$) Maximize agency. If the subject entity is speci-c and is human, then it is inferred that s/he is an agent that has exercised his/her capacity and that action has taken place. Since the entity in (%)#a) is not speci-c, the property need not be instantiated (see Krifka et al. %!!) for the foundational idea that inde-nite generic sentences do not require actual individuals. See discussion in section %...%). %.(...%.( Intensional AB without initiating events +ere is a variety of generic sentences that the 'inner disposition' view cannot cover. For instance there is no 'inner disposition' that explains that a refrigerator costs a lot of money: (%&%) A refrigerator costs B%$$$. In a di/erent account appealing to a cover abilitative operator,Mari (($%%a), following Eckardt (%!!!), argues that characterizing sentences are about ideal worlds, i.e. the modal basis is restricted to worlds without accidents and proposes the analysis in (%&(). It must be emphasized here that this analysis applies only to inde-nite generic sentences. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi &( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete (%&() +w* , MB(w), x[w*is sucht that there are no impediments][P(x,w*) Q(x,w*)] Paraphrase: in all worlds w* in the modal basis of w such that there are no impediments, if x is a P entity in w*, it is also a Q entity in w*. +e conditional analysis of generic sentences is not new (see Part . of the introduction). What matters here is that the modal basis is restricted to worlds in which there are no impediments.+is restriction is is derived in a principled way from the semantics of abilities and dispositions.+e argument goes as follows: %. +e inde-nite provides a free variable (Heim %!#(), which is existentially bounded if there is a spatio-temporal location speci-ed (see for discussion, Chierchia %!!); McNally %!!#). (%&.) a. A bird ,ies over the roof. (!) b. A bird ,ies. (+) (. In the latter case (%&.b), following Kenny (%!")), one can assume that the sentence has an 'abilitative' interpretation, i.e. the predicate in the present tense denotes an 'ability'. An ability is a state of the agent that has an explanatory value w.r.t. action. In (%&.b), ',ies' denotes an ability of a bird. .. Generic inde-nites, which denote unspeci-c entities can be attributed abilities (they cannot be attributed habits, however, since habits can only be attributed on the basis of observation of repeated action, for a speci-c entity).Mari (($%%a) proposes that a silent AB operator be reconstructed. Distinct from Boneh and Doron's HAB<=> operator, AB does not require even the existence of events, and does not imply summation. It is a mere intensional operator that describes un-actualized abilities. .. Abilities lead to success when there are no opposing conditions (see Fara ($$#). '. Hence, worlds with no accidents are triggered by the type of modal that is reconstructed to get the generic interpretation of the inde-nite with the present tense. +e notion of world without impediments elaborated in Mari's account is contrasted with two other conceptions. Firstly, it is contrasted with Cohen's (%!!!) view according towhich a normalworld is one inwhich regularities observed in the past are considered to hold in the future. According to this view of normality (%&') is predicted to be false since most turtles are caught by predators and die young. (%&') A turtle has a long lifespan. Secondly, it is contrasted with Nickel's (($$#) view according to which things are normal in di/erent 'ways', but the notion of normality is not further spelled out. On Nickel's view it is unclear what it might mean for a refrigerator to be normal (to cost B%$$$?, see (%&%)). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &. of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction &. ".%.'.% Tensed abilitative can and two types of abilities: generic and speci*c abilities Much of the recent and ongoing debate on the semantics of abilities and dispositions has focused on tensed abilitative can in Romance languages (see e.g. Hacquard ($$&; Mari andMartin ($$", ($$!b; Demirdache and Uribe-Etxebarria ($$#; Homer ($%$; Mari ($%%c; Mari and Schweitzer ($%$). It has been in fact noted that abilitative can in the perfective and imperfective aspect is (prima facie) associated with two di/erent types of entailments (see Bhatt %!!!). Here we focus on French. In particular, while pouvoir in the imperfective does not entail the truth of the event denoted by the embedded predicate, this entailment is derived when pouvoir is in the perfective aspect. Both the following sentences have an epistemic and an abilitative interpretation. We focus here on the abilitative one. (%&)) a. Jean John pouvaitimperfect could déplacer move la the table, table, mais but il he ne did l'a that pas not fait do John could move the table, but he did not do it. b. Jean John a could pupresent.perfect déplacer move la the table, table, 7 mais but il he ne did l'a that pas not fait do John could move the table, but he did not do it. On the initial explanation of Bhatt (%!!!), who -rst noted this contrast in Hindi, two lexical entries for can were distinguished: an abilitative can and an action can. +is contrast is studied in Hacquard (($$&), who aims to keep only one lexical entry for can. In comparing the abilitative reading of (%&)b) with the epistemic reading which is also available for this sentence, Hacquard explains that the abilitative reading is obtained when the modality is interpreted below aspect and scopes over a property of events (on the epistemic reading the modality is considered to scope over tense). While capturing the distinction between abilitative and epistemic modality (see counter-proposals in Homer ($%$ and Mari ($%$), this view does not tell us much about abilitativemodality itself which is treated as circumstantial modality.+e contrast in (%&)) has been revised in subsequent literature. In particular Mari and Martin (($$") point to the fact that the actuality entailment is not derived when an overt temporal adverb is speci-ed as in (%&&).*5 (%&&) Le robot a pupresent.perfect repasser les chemises à un stade bien précis de son développement, mais il ne l'a pas fait !e robot could iron shirts at a precise stage of its development but it did not do it. Here a so-called 'quasi-counterfactual' meaning is obtained (see Mari ($%%c). +e intendedmeaning is that the robotwould have been able to iron shirts during a certain period of time during its development, but that functionality was then suppressed *5 For additional data see Homer (($%$). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi &' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete and thus the robot never ultimately ironed shirts. +e conditional is more likely to be used in this context but the present perfect is also acceptable. In explaining these data, Mari and Martin (($$!b) propose an ontological view, and build on the Aristotelian distinction between two types of abilities.+is distinction is formulated in the following terms by Aristotle (de Interpretatione, ',(.): . . . 'Possible' itself is ambiguous. It is used, on the one hand of facts and of things that are actualized; it is 'possible' for someone to walk, inasmuch as he actually walks, and in generally we call a thing 'possible' since it is now realized. On the other hand, 'possible' is used of a thing thatmight be realized; it is possible for someone to walk since in certain conditions he would . . . +is distinction has been adopted or proposed in similar terms by a number of authors (although not all recognize that the distinction was initiated by Aristotle), most notably by Austin (%!"!a), Von Wright (%!&.) and +alberg (%!"(). +ere are various ways to understand the notion of capacity in acto (i.e. the actualized capacity). +e most radical view consists in denying of this type of capacity the status of 'ability' (+alberg %!"(; in the linguistic literature, Bhatt %!!!). In this case 'ability' means 'action'. According to the pragmatic view, a capacity in acto is a capacity that is 'attributed' on the basis of the fact that an action has been observed (Austin %!"!a and recently, in the linguistic literature, Piñón ($$!). Across these understandings of the Aristotelian distinction, all authors agree on the fact that the capacity in acto is considered to be speci*c, that is to say, relative to an occasion for acting. A general ability is instead a state of the agent that holds across situations (for the -rst use of speci-c vs generic ability, see Honoré (%!&')). Mari and Martin (($$") spell out an ontological distinction for this view.+ey relabel the Aristotelian distinction between two types of abilities as generic and action-dependent abilities (respectively GA and ADA). +ey propose the following de-nitions, which consist of three ontological constraints, plus a fourth epistemological one, which guides the criterion for ability attribution. (%&") Generic abilities • GAs do not require verifying instances (one does not have to kill a rabbit to have the GA to kill a rabbit) • GAs are ascribed to an agent i only if i could perform repeatedly the action if desired • GAs are conceived by default as unbounded (temporally persistent): if a GA is ascribed to i in t, it is typically assumed that i has the same GA in some t' . t • GAs are a positive explanatory factor in accounting for the agent's performance of an action (attributing to the agent i the GA to perform the action a can explain the fact that he performs a; 'he was able to do it, so he did it') Generic abilities are abilities à la Kenny (%!")). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &) of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction &) (%&#) Action-dependent abilities • ADAs require an action to exist-actually, an ADA ontologically depends on the corresponding action • ADAs are weaker abilities than GAs because a unique and non-repeatable performance su3ces to imply the corresponding ADA • ADAs have the same temporal boundaries as the action on which they depend and are thus bounded (Paul was able to hit three bull's eyes in a row exactly at the interval the hit three bull's eyes in a row) • +e attribution to the agent i of the ADAs to do the action a is not typically used as an explanation of the fact that i did a. It is rather because a performs an action a that we attribute him the ADAs to perform a ('he did it, so he was able to do it'). +is distinction between two types of abilities is revealed in the distinction between the perfective and imperfective aspect. As was discussed in section %.(.(.%, the imperfective denotes an unbounded period of time in Romance languages and thus is likely to be used to express a generic meaning.+e perfective denotes a bounded period of time and is more likely to be used to express punctual or accidental occurrences of events or states. As for pouvoir ('can'), Mari andMartin explain that when this verb is in the perfect aspect it can either denote a bounded generic ability (as in (%&&)) or an actiondependent ability (as in (%&)b)). +ey explain that the actuality entailment arises in the latter case, since this entailment is characteristic of the action-dependent ability, which, in and of itself, requires an action to exist.*6 +ey explain that the actuality entailment does not arise when pouvoir is in the imperfective aspect as it then denotes a generic ability, which is not associated with an actuality entailment. Without stating this overtly, the authors assume an optimality theory framework. Generic abilities are states and are thus unbounded. Action-dependent abilities depend on action and are thus bounded. Since the imperfective and the perfective aspect denote respectively an unbounded and a bounded period of time, they are chosen to express, respectively, generic (unbounded) abilities and action-dependent (bounded abilities). +e robot example in (%&&) illustrates the case inwhich the perfective is also used to express a generic ability (i.e. an ability which is not instantiated by an actual action), as a bounded period of time at which the ability holds is targeted (that bounded period of time is provided by the temporal adverb).*8 *6 +is view has been criticized by Piñón (($$!) who claims that there are only abilities as explanatory factors for action and proposes treating the distinction on a pragmatic level elaborating on the fourth epistemological condition and overtly using abductive reasoning. For a discussion of ability attribution and abductive reasoning, see Mari (($%%c). *8 For a formal analysis that uses the bounded-unbounded distinction without resorting to an optimality framework, see Mari (($%%c). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) && of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi && Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete +ework ofGiannakidou and Staraki (present volume) builds onMari andMartin's distinction, but shows that the distinction between generic and speci-c abilities is not determined by aspect. +ey examine data from Greek and show that both types of abilities can be associated with both perfective and imperfective aspect. !.+ Genericity and the sentence +e discussion in the last part of this introduction begins by acknowledging that there is a variety of generic sentences and addresses the question of whether this variety correlates with particular linguistic forms. Generic sentences with singular inde-nites on the one hand and bare plural generics (in English) and de-nite plural generics (in Romance languages) on the other are considered. Section %...% discusses the contribution of di/erent determiners to the interpretation of the sentences. Section %...( addresses the question of the notion of normality and compares normative to statistical views of this notion. ".'." Interpretations of GEN As already recalled, the tripartite structure on which most of the current approaches build (%&!) was introduced by Farkas and Sugioka (%!#.), as a major novelty against Carlson's unitary operatorGn (see discussion in section %.(.(.%). Let us recall here that GEN is a sentential operator (see (%&!)), taking a restrictor and a nuclear scope. More speci-cally, it is an unselective quanti-er that can bind any variable in its scope. For reasons of clarity we specify which variables are bound in each case we discuss. (%&!) GEN [restrictor] [nuclear scope] On the foundational analysis of GEN (see Farkas and Sugioka %!#.; de Swart %!!%; Chierchia %!!); Kratzer %!!)), GEN means essentially 'generally, always'. Farkas and Sugioka's theory is grounded in the Lewisian (Lewis %!")) view that always, generally are unselective quanti-cational adverbs which take sentential scope. GEN is argued to be triggered by a silent when-clause, on the basis of the following argument. (%"$a) is interpreted as in (%"$b). When a when-clause occurs with an overt AdvQ (%"$c), the when-clause provides the restriction for AdvQ. Hence in (%"$a) a silent AdvQ called GENmust be reconstructed, for which the silentwhen-clause provides the restriction. GEN is considered to mean 'always'. (%"$) a. Fido barks. b. Fido barks (when he is hungry). c. Fido usually barks when he is hungry. +e resulting LF for (%"$a) is given in (%"%): !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &" of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction &" (%"%) a. GEN s[in(s,Fido)][barks(s,Fido)] b. Always/Usually in relevant situations that involve Fido, Fido barks. Being unselective, GEN can also bind individuals. +e sentence (%"(a) receives the analysis in (%"(b) (here we suppress the details pertaining to the relation between kinds and their realizing instances). (%"() a. Bears are intelligent when they have blue eyes. b. GEN x [bear(x) & have blue eyes (x)] [intelligent (x)] In Farkas and Sugioka two questions are raised, which punctuate the subsequent literature on generics.+e -rst is the relation between GEN and universal quanti-cation. GEN is known to tolerate exceptions, and Farkas and Sugioka subsequently argue that GEN should be interpreted as a vague universal quanti-er. +e second pertains to the causal reasoning that underlies the interpretation of GEN.+ey explain that a pragmatic component must dismiss as irrelevant cases in which the restrictor is false (making the sentence come out true). Krifka et al. propose a modal analysis of GEN (they mainly discuss the matter in relation to inde-nite singular generic sentences as they treat BNs as referring to kinds). On this intensional analysis of GEN, (%".a) is interpreted as in (%".b).+e if -clause provides the restriction for GEN. GEN is interpreted as an intensional unselective universal quanti-er meaning 'must' (Krifka et al. %!!)). On the assumption that inde-nites contribute a free variable ranging over individuals (Kamp %!#%; Heim %!#(), that variable can be bound by the available universal quanti-er as well (for further details, see Eckardt %!!!). Krifka et al. assume a classical modal framework in whichW is a set of worlds, D a domain of entities, and! an ordering source on worlds according to normality. (%".) a. A dog barks. b. If something is a dog, it barks. c. +w* !w, x[dog(x,w*)][barks(x,w*)] Paraphrase: in all worlds which are 'normal', if something is a dog in those worlds, then it barks in those worlds. Current analysis of GEN is divided on the matter of whether GEN means 'always' or if it is an intensional operator. In section %.(.(.(, we discussed criticisms of those approaches that hold GEN to mean 'always' (see Ferreira ($$) for criticism of de Swart's %!!. approach). In the rest of this introduction we mostly consider the modal analysis of GEN (although we return to the view of Farkas and de Swart ($$" in section %...%.%.)). +e current debate can be mainly categorized into two types of approaches. Firstly, in section %...%.%, we consider the views which have provided di/erent interpretations !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &# of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi &# Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete for GEN according to the linguistic form used for the generalization, and, in particular, according to whether an inde-nite singular (%"'a) or a bare plural (%"'b) (or a de-nite plural in Romance languages (%"'c)) is used. (%"') a. A raven is black. b. Ravens are black. c. Les corbeaux sont noirs. Secondly, we dedicate section %...( to some other new approaches to GEN and characterizing sentences more broadly, which have not paid attention to the linguistic di/erences between types of generic sentences, and which have mainly considered bare plural sentences such as (%"'c). ".'."." Inde*nite singular, bare plural, and de*nite plural generics in contrast %...%.%.% Empirical scope As was made clear in Krifka et al. %!!), and as already noted, there are essentially two means for obtaining the generic interpretation. +e -rst is by direct reference to kinds.+is can be obtained by using the singular de-nite (%")a) or (according to certain authors, see in particular Carlson %!""b and subsequent work), by using bare plurals (BP), as in (%")b).+e BP is, according to this view, the name of the kind 'lion'. (%")) a. +e lion has a mane (reference to kind). b. Lions have a mane. +e second way to obtain the generic interpretation of the sentence is by using characterizing sentences. Inde-nite singular (IS) sentences (%"&) are agreed to be a type of characterizing sentence. (%"&) A lion has a mane. As we discuss in the sequel to the Introduction, according to some authors (e.g. Cohen ($$%a; Greenberg ($$() BP statements such as (%")b) are also characterizing sentences, in the sense that the BP does not directly refer to kinds. From now on we refer to inde-nite singular generic sentence as ISs, and to bare plural generic sentences as BPs. In some Romance languages, aside from direct reference to kinds obtained when the singular de-nite is used (%""a)–(%"#a), when singular inde-nites (%""b)–(%"#b) and plural de-nites (%""c)–(%"#c) are used, characterizing sentences are obtained.We refer to plural de-nite generic statement as DGs. (%"") a. (It.) Il leone ha una criniera. !e lion has a mane. b. (It.) Un leone ha una criniera. A lion has a mane. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) &! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction &! c. (It.) I leoni hanno una criniera. !e lions have a mane. (%"#) a. (Fr.) Le lion a une crinière. !e lion has a mane. b. (Fr.) Un lion a une crinière. A lion has a mane. c. (Fr.) Les lions ont une crinière. !e lions have a mane. Here we consider theories of BPs and DGs that analyze them in ways other than as names of kinds and strive to explain them in relation to ISs. %...%.%.( Analytic vs Synthetic? ISs and BPs in English, like ISs and DGs in Romance languages, do not seem to express the same type of generalizations. ISs, in English and in Romance languages, have been claimed to express law-like statements and to be compatible only with essential properties, as the contrast in (%"!a)–(%"!b) illustrates. (%"!a) has been argued to be acceptable as 'polyphonic' is a de-nitional property ofmadrigals, whereas (%"!b)would be unacceptable as 'popular' is not a de-nitive property of madrigals. BPs have been noted to be compatible with both essential properties (%#$a) and accidental generalizations (%#$b) (Lawler %!"(; Dahl %!"); Burton-Roberts %!""; Cohen ($$%a; Greenberg ($$(; Mari ($$#b,a). +e same observations hold for ISs ((%#%a) vs (%#%b)) and DGs ((%#(a) (%#(b)) in Romance languages (herewe consider Italian, but the same contrasts hold for French). (%"!) a. A madrigal is polyphonic. b. *A madrigal is popular. (%#$) a. Madrigals are polyphonic. b. Madrigals are popular. (%#%) a. Un madrigale è polifonico. A madrigal is polyphonic. b. *Un madrigale è popolare. *A madrigal is popular. (%#() a. I madrigali sono polifonici. '!e' madrigals are polyphonic. b. I madrigali sono popolari. '!e' madrigals are popular. Much disagreement remains however when it comes to the analysis of these statements. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) "$ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi "$ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete We -rst consider the shortcomings of the theories elaborated at the time of !e Generic Book in section %...%.%.., and then move on to new approaches in section %...%.%.'. %...%.%.. ISs and BPs in Krifka et al. (%!!)) Krifka et al. begins by explaining that the main di/erence between bare plurals and singular inde-nites is that the former but not the latter can be used for direct kind predication. (%#.) a. Dinosaurs are extinct. b. *A dinosaur is extinct. On this view, (%#.a) expresses a property of the kind 'dinosaur', represented as '/ dinosaurs'. (%#.b) are instead considered as characterizing sentences and the singular inde-nite does not support a predicate of kinds. Krifka et al. (%!!)) thus focus on ISs and assume as a starting point the intensional analysis in (%".c) repeated in (%#'). (%#') +w* !w, x[dog(x,w*)][barks(x,w*)] Contra the commonly held assumption that ISs express only de-nitional statements (e.g. Lawler %!"(; Burton-Roberts %!""), Krifka et al. note that there are a variety of ISs, including de-nitional and non-de-nitional (see also Putnam %!")). What varies according to Krifka et al. is the type of modal base: this can be abilitative, deontic, circumstantial . . . +e modal base is deontic in (%#)a), ablitative in (%#)b), and realistic in (%#)c). +e choice of modal base is determined by the corresponding sentence with an overt modality, as presented in (%#&a), (%#&b), and (%#&c). (%#)) a. A gentleman opens the door for ladies. b. A boat ,oats. c. A turtle lives a long time. (%#&) a. A gentleman must open the door for ladies. b. ??A boat can ,oat. c. A turtle can live a long time. +is treatment encounters at least two shortcomings that Krifka et al. did not fail to note (see also discussion in Mari forthcoming). Firstly, ISs with covert modality are not always synonymous with those with overt modality, as the oddness of (%#&b) reveals ((%#)b) is however perfectly -ne). Consequently, cases in which the modal is overt or covert should be distinguished and treated separately. As we show below, while it is reasonable to endorse a classical treatment of modal statements when the modal is overt, extending the account to cases in which it is covert is a more risky theoretical choice. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) "% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction "% A second shortcoming pertains to (%#)c). Krifka et al. (%!!): )&) write: . . . +is sentence evokes a kind of "realistic" modality in which the laws of biology hold. However, the worlds in which no turtle ever dies a premature death are biologically highly abnormal . . . Another potential problem for the modal account as stated in Krifka et al. is that allowing the use of any type ofmodal base cannot rule out temporary properties (%#"), since in most circumstantially normal worlds it is true that raps are popular. (%#") *A rap is popular. Various theories have been proposed, which are an elaboration of the LF in (%#'). +ese theories also do not claim that BPs are names of kinds, and thus closely consider the elaboration of (%#') that is induced by the use of an inde-nite singular, and that which results from the use of a bare plural (in English) or a de-nite plural (in Romance languages). %...%.%.' New approaches of IS/BP and IS/DG Uni,ed quanti,cational account Greenberg's (($$() account, while recognizing the contrast between (%##a) and (%##b) (see Lawler %!"( and Dahl %!")), does not subscribe to the claim that ISs are de-nitional whereas BPs express descriptive generalizations, as for instance (%#!) is a perfectly acceptable sentence, although it is not de-nitional. (%##) a. A madrigal is polyphonic / *popular. b. Madrigals are polyphonic / popular. (%#!) A Norwegian student wears green socks. Greenberg's claim is that both ISs and BPs should be treated as quanti-cational statements. In essence, bare plurals are treated as inde-nites, which also provide a variable bound by GEN. GEN is analyzed in an intensional framework. +e novelty of Greenberg's account is that it captures the variety of available interpretations for ISs and BPs by appealing to two di/erent types of accessibility relations (in the framework of Kratzer %!!%a,b). Speci-cally, in Greenberg's setting, the accessibility relation between worlds can be of two types. It can be an 'in virtue of ' property or a 'maximal similarity relation'. ISs appeal to an 'in virtue of ' property. (%!$) a. A boy does not cry (in virtue of 'being tough') b. +w*[+x[boy(x,w*)] - [tough(x,w*)]] - [+x, s[boy(x,w*)] - [0cry(x,w*)]] c. Paraphrase: In all worlds where every boy is tough, every boy does not cry (in all relevant situations s). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) "( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi "( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete +is analysis is strongly reminiscent of the treatment of dispositional statements. Saying that sugar is soluble means that it dissolves in water in virtue of an intrinsic property of sugar. Similarly, to state that a boy does not cry means that a boy does not cry in virtue of some intrinsic property of boys. +is straightforwardly and correctly captures that madrigals are polyphonic by appealing to the internal make-up of madrigals (e.g. Fara ($$#). Greenberg extends the quanti-cational approach to BP statements, whose analysis is given in (%!%b). Here the accessibility relation between worlds is simply maximal similarity (Max). (%!%) a. Professors wear a tie. b. +w*[Max(w,w*)] - [+x, s[professors(x,w*) " C(s, x,w*)] - [wear a tie(s, x,w*)]] c. Paraphrase: +e generalization 'every professor wears a tie' is nonaccidental-not limited to the actual world-but is expected to hold in other, non-actual worlds which are maximally similar to the actual world. Both (%!$a) and (%!%a) express generalizations over individuals. +e normative vs descriptive ,avor distinction is thus derived by accommodating two di/erent types of accessibility relations. +is type of quanti-cational account has been criticized on di/erent grounds. Firstly, with regard to universal quanti-cation over possible worlds,Menéndez-Benito (($$) and present volume) has recently noted that some cases are not properly captured; (%!(a) is paraphrasable as (%!(b) but not as (%!(c). (%!() a. A car goes ($$ kph. b. A car can go ($$ kph. c. A car must go ($$ kph. Secondly, there are cases for which it is hardly possible to -nd an 'in virtue' of property that justi-es the causal relation between property P and property Q, as in the cases following in (%!.) (see also Corblin, this volume). (%!.) a. A refrigerator costs B%$$$ in Europe. b. A soccer player earns a lot of money. +irdly, if by some means an 'in virtue of ' property were to be found that enabled (%!.), then this same procedure could be used to justifyAmadrigal is popular. Greenberg's account thus seems to overgeneralize (seeKrifka, present volume). Finally, it has to be emphasized that Greenberg's account is speci-c to English. Here bare plurals are used, which are considered to provide a variable to be bound by GEN.+is quanti-cational approach cannot be adopted as such for DGs in Romance languages since !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ". of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction ". descriptive generalizations are expressed by de-nites, which are referential expressions and consequently cannot provide a variable in the way bare plurals do (see Beyssade ($$); Farkas and de Swart ($$", and section %...%.%.) of this introduction). Non-uni,ed quanti,cational accounts: the rules and regulations hypothesis. +e alternative approach, namely the non-uni-ed quanti-cational account, also strives to capture the intuition that IS sentences have a de-nitional ,avor that is absent from BP sentences. We consider the treatment of ISs and BPs in turn. ISs in non-uni,ed quanti,cational accounts. +is alternative view claims that IS statements are not generalizations about individuals but rather they assert the existence of a rule. +e main exponents of this view are Burton-Roberts (%!""), revived and formalized in Cohen (($$%a).*9 Under the rules and regulation hypothesis it has been argued that (%!'b) is felicitous only if a rule is posited that regulates the opening days of Italian restaurants. In fact, it has been argued that it is not even necessary that there are actual Italian restaurants and that, as o0en noted (see Krifka et al. %!!): '!) inde-nite generic sentences do not require that actual individuals exist. (%!') a. (It.) Un ristorante Italiano è chiuso il martedì. b. (En.) An Italian restaurant is closed on Tuesday. A sentence like (%!)) is thus analyzed as expressing the proposition in (%!&). +e propositional function is shi0ed into a rule by an appropriate operator '!' (see Lewis %!"!). A rule does not express propositional content and Cohen (($$%a) argues that rules only have to conform to the models in which the proposition expressed by the entailment is true. +e major question that remains open is what the analysis of the proposed entailment should be. (%!)) A gentleman opens the doors for ladies. (%!&) !(gentleman(x) open-doors-for-ladies(x)) On a technical basis, Cohen explains that ISs are not quanti-cational on the following grounds.+e peculiarity of generic inde-nites is that they do not refer to a particular entity. In his words, they do not provide a topic. A topic is argued to be necessary in order to feed the restriction of a quanti-er. Hence GEN cannot be used as its restriction would be empty. +e exact form of the entailment in (%!&) is intentionally le0 unexplained, and Cohen suggests that it might be further elaborated into universal quanti-cation over possible worlds and individuals, thus espousing the classical view of unselective binding approaches. *9 See Mari (($$#b) for French. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) "' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi "' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete Cohen (($$%a) then develops a theory of rules as expressing non-propositional content, and argues that all inde-nite generics express is that there is a rule which conforms to the models in which the proposition expressed by the entailment is true. Proponents of the rules and regulations hypothesis have also paid a great deal of attention to the pragmatic behavior of IS sentences and have emphasized the fact that inde-nite statements have a prescriptive use (%!") (Corblin %!!") or a moral ,avor (Cohen ($$%d). (%!") Una pianta ha bisogno di acqua per vivere! A plant needs water to live! On this view, it has been argued that ISs are in fact not compatible with exceptions. For instance, Burton-Roberts (%!"") observes that 'if Emile does not as a rule open doors for ladies, his mother could utter (%!)) and thereby successfully imply that Emile was not, or was not being a gentleman'. One cannot thus maintain that if Emile does not open doors for ladies he could be an exception to the generalization. +e generalization holds 'necessarily' for all individuals. If one does not satisfy the generalization he is simply not a gentleman. +e rules and regulations hypothesis also faces some problems. %. Firstly, it undermines the fact that exceptional individuals can still be accommodated. (%!#a)–(%!#b) are compatible with the fact that there are soccer players (in the third French league, for instance) who do not earn a lot of money, they are nonetheless soccer players. What de-nes a soccer player is not his earning a lot of money, as advocated in Mari and Martin (($$!a). (%!#) a. A soccer player earns a lot of money. b. (Fr.) Un footballer gagne beaucoup d'argent. It is nevertheless correct that in some cases, IS sentences have a prescriptive use and are used as de-nitions. However, IS statements with prescriptive use usually have an overt modality as in (%!") or (%!!), as noted in Carlier (($$$) for French. (%!!) Une jeune femme doit bien se comporter. A young lady must behave well. In these cases the standard Kratzerian analysis of deontic modality can apply. Here, the choice of the modal base is determined by the modal itself (see Krifka et al. %!!)). In (%!!) the modality is deontic and the prescriptive use is enhanced by the deontic reading of the modal.+e sentence (%!") with the semi-modal need is thus analyzed as 'it is necessary that plants get watered'. In cases which have been argued to have a prescriptive use, and in which there is no overtmodality, such as (%!)), the role of prosody has been undermined.*: +ese state- *: Note that without speci-c prosody the sentence is also acceptable. However, in that case the prescriptive reading is unavailable and the sentence merely expresses a generalization about what gentleman do. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ") of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction ") ments can become rules only if they are turned into imperatives by the appropriate intonation. In this case, their prescriptive use correlates with their being imperatives rather than assertions (formore on the relation between deontics and imperatives, see Ninan ($$); Schwager ($$&; Portner ($$"). In conclusion, IS statements have truth values, unlike what is claimed by the rules-and-regulations-like accounts. (. +e major di3culty encountered by the rules and regulations hypothesis is that the relation between facts and rules is not su3ciently spelled out. A rule that is in e/ect, is in e/ect in the actual world. However, sometimes facts do not conform to the rule. Let us consider the case of the old turtle again: (($$) A turtle lives a long time. +e rule that a turtle lives a long time is in e/ect. Sill, most of turtles die young (because of predation).How can one reconcile facts with rules? A0er all, what the generalization expresses is still a generalization about the turtle that dies young because of predators. It is true that this turtle also has the property of dying old (in the absence of predators). In other words, the rule according to which turtles die old is in e/ect even for turtles that die young. Developments of the rules and regulations hypothesis Mari (($$#b) proposes dissecting the common ground into a world index w and a perspective index i. Facts are one and the same in the actual world, but they can be enlightened by di/erent perspectives. A turtle dies old under the biological perspective. However, the perspective is about turtles that are in the actual world. InMari (($$#a), the index i is assimilated to the judge parameter and she claims that ISs have di/erent truth conditions according to di/erent judges. Krifka (present volume) criticizes this approach. Krifka espouses the view that the common ground can be dissected into two indices-a world index w and an interpretation index i andmaintains that ISs are de-nitional, along the lines of BurtonRoberts (for a reply to Krifka (present volume) see Mari forthcoming). BPs in non-uni,ed quanti,cational approaches As mentioned at the beginning of section (%...%.%..), Krifka et al. (%!!)) propose treating BPs as cases of direct kind predication. Cohen (($$%a) extensively criticizes this view with the aim of showing that a quanti-cational account using GEN should be used for bare plurals as well. Cohen's arguments proceed as follows: %. Generic sentences postulated to be cases of direct kind predication are intuitively about individuals, as in (($%). (($%) Kings are generous. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) "& of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi "& Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete (. One way of testing cases of direct-kind predication is by showing that it is impossible to modify the sentence by an overt adverb of quanti-cation (($(). (($() Dinosaurs are *always/*usually/*sometimes extinct However, the following sentences are acceptable, showing that these are not cases of direct-kind predication. (($.) a. Madrigals are always popular. b. Kings are usually generous. c. Rooms are sometimes square. .. A third problem for Krifka et al.'s view of BPs as names of kinds arises when one considers scope ambiguities. If BPs were cases of direct-kind predication, they should not involve scope ambiguities, and yet the data shows that they do.+e following example is from Cohen (($$%a). (($') Madrigals are popular with exactly one music fan. Cohen (($$%a: %#") argues that on one reading, for any givenmadrigal there is exactly one music fan with whom it is popular; on a second reading the sentence asserts that there is exactly one music fan who likes madrigals.+ese readings could not be di/erentiated if the logical form of (($') involved no quanti-cation. Having argued that generic BPs do not primarily refer to kinds (see facts (($%)– (($')) Cohen maintains a quanti*cational approach using GEN. As distinct from singular inde-nites, BPs provide a speci-c entity which the sentence is about, hence a topic. A topic, it is argued, is needed to provide the restriction of a quanti-er and GEN can thus apply. While arguing that BPs are not cases of direct-kind predication, Cohen posits that for providing a speci-c entity they contribute a kind in the -rst place. However, admitting that the sentence in (($)) is not about kinds, but about individual kings, Cohen argues that individual kings are triggered by an appropriate coercion operation and the LF proposed for BPs is as in (($&). /king stands for the kind 'king' and C returns the instances x belonging to the kind 'king'. (($)) Kings are generous. (($&) GENx [C(x, /king)] [generous(x)] Paraphrase: in general the x that belongs to the kind 'king' are generous %...%.%.) A comparison between BP and DG Empirical resemblances +e idea that BPs refer to a speci-c entity underlies a number of approaches to the analysis of DGs in Romance languages (see (($")). Various authors have claimed that they denotemaximal sums (see e.g. Beyssade ($$); !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) "" of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction "" Dobrovie-Sorin ($$', and more particularly Farkas and de Swart ($$", and Mari, ($%%a). (($") Les rois sont généreux. Kings are generous. As a matter of fact, BPs in English and DGs in Romance languages give rise to very similar interpretations, and seem to pattern alike in many respects. Firstly, they both express generalizations about individuals. (($#) Les rois sont généreux. Kings are generous. Secondly, each can express both de-nitional and accidental generalizations. (($!) a. (En.) Madrigals are popular. b. (Fr.) Les madrigaux sont populaires. +irdly, they both contrast with the singular de-nite, in that they can express generalizations that concern individuals, regardless of whether they belong to wellestablished kinds or not (see discussion in Vendler %!"%, Carlson %!""b: '..). ((%$) a. +e Bengal tiger is dangerous. b. ??+e wounded tiger is dangerous. ((%%) a. Le tigre du Bengale est dangereux. b. ??Le tigre blessé est dangereux. ((%() a. Bengal tigers are dangerous. b. Wounded tigers are dangerous. ((%.) a. Les tigres du Bengale sont dangereux. b. Les tigres blessés sont dangereux. Fourthly, they seem to exhibit the same scope ambiguities. As was seen in (($'), ((%') also has two di/erent interpretations. As above, on one reading, for any given madrigal there is exactly one music fan with whom it is popular; on a second reading the sentence asserts that there is exactly one music fan who likes madrigals. Again, this should lead us to conclude that these readings could not be di/erentiated if the logical form of (($') involved no quanti-cation. ((%') (lt.) I madrigali sono popolari con esattamente un fan. Madrigals are popular with exactly one music fan. Ultimately, given these resemblances, various authors have tried to trigger a quanti-cational analysis from the premise that a de-nite plural refers to a speci-c entity (i.e. a !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) "# of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi "# Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete maximal sum). Here we consider two recent works which have provided full-,edged logical forms for DGs. Farkas and de Swart (#$$-) Farkas and de Swart propose a uni-ed account for BPs and DGs. To begin with, following Ojeda %!!., they assume that BPs and DGs denote kinds, and they identify kinds with the highest node of a lattice (e.g. Link %!#.a). Following Chierchia (%!!#), they also assume that maximal sums are intensional. +ey explain that both BPs and DGs refer to such plural objects in virtue of their plurality feature. For DGs, they propose the following analysis. ((%)) a. (Fr.) Les chiens sont intelligents. !e dogs are intelligent. b. GENs[!dog(x) " Pl(x)"in(x, s)][intelligent(x, s)] +e-rst assumption is thatGENquanti-es over situations.+ey also assume thatDGs introduce a determined referent ('!' in ((%)b) expresses determined reference) that participates in the situation s.+is referent is a maximal set of individuals (Pl) and it is the kind. GEN compares two sets of situations in which the elements of the kind are involved.Members of the kind are triggered by a distribution operation yielded by the distributive predicate to be intelligent (as forCohen ($$%a). In ((%)), the interpretation is obtained that most of the situations that comprise a determinate set of dogs are situations in which dogs are intelligent. On the same assumption that GEN quanti-es over situations, the analysis of BPs is given in ((%&) (dog(x) in the following LF is a term). ((%&) a. Dogs are intelligent. b. GENs[dog(x) " Pl(x)"in(x, s)][intelligent(x, s)] +e authors explain that the BP does not assert determined reference. However, in virtue of its pluralmorphology, such a determined referent is accommodated and this referent is again the kind. Again, GEN compares two sets of situations, each involving the elements of the kind. Here '!' is missing as the BP is not considered to primarily assert determined reference, rather determined reference is triggered via the plural feature of the BP. It is easy to see that from the perspective of the operation of generalization, it does not really matter whether the determined reference is asserted or accommodated and the same interpretation is in fact obtained for BPs and DGs. In spite of the numerous similarities between BPs and DGs, in Romance languages ((%!) is not ambiguous in the same way as its English correspondent ((%") is, as illustrated in their corresponding available paraphrases given respectively in ((($) and ((%#). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) "! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction "! ((%") Typhoons arise in this area of the Paci-c. ((%#) a. Paraphrase % In general typhoons arise in this area of the Paci-c b. Paraphrase (+ere are typhoons arising in this area of the Paci-c ((%!) I tifoni sorgono in questa parte del Paci-co. Typhoons arise in this area of the Paci*c. ((($) a. Paraphrase % In generale i tifoni sorgono in questa parte del Paci-co In general typhoons arise in this area of the Paci*c. b. Paraphrase ( ??Ci sono i tifoni in questa parte del Paci-co !ere are typhoons arising in this area of the Paci*c. Under the interpretation in ((($b), ((%!) expresses in fact that it is a property of this part of the Paci-c that there are typhoons, and it thus expresses a generalization about a location (see Kratzer %!#!) rather than about individuals.+is interpretation is unavailable with DGs in Romance. +is constraint can be derived from a general requirement about DGs, namely that they denote a set of entities whose existence is asserted (or presupposed1;). Since BPs and DGs are treated on a par in Farkas and de Swart (($$"), this discrepancy between the available uses of BPs and DGs cannot be captured. However, in view of the fact that their analysis explains most of the similarities between BPs and DGs, it should not be abandoned entirely. %...%.%.& DG in Romance: more on individuals and situations Building on Farkas and de Swart's idea that DGs assert the existence of a maximal plural entity, Mari (($%%a) proposes an analysis which captures the ability of DGs to express both inductive generalizations (((%b) and de-nitional statements (((%a). Inductive generalizations rest on observation, whereas de-nitional statements do not. (((%) a. (It.) I madrigal sono polifonici. '!e' madrigals are polyphonic. b. (It.) I madrigal sono popolari. '!e' madrigals are popular. 1; Two explanations can be given according to whether de-nites are considered to assert existence and maximality à la Russell, or whether they are considered to contribute maximality plus a presupposition of existence à la Frege-Strawson. Let us adopt the Russellian view. According to Russell, inde-nites also contribute assertion of existence. In this respect both BPs (considered as inde-nites) and DGs would be out in these constructions since for both existence would be asserted twice.Maintaining the Russellian view for de-nites and adopting the Kamp-Heim view for inde-nites (according to which they only contribute a free variable) is one way to solve the problem: existence is asserted twice only for de-nites and for this reason they are ruled out. Alternatively, one can assume with Zucchi (%!!)) that de-nites cannot be used in there-constructions because strong determiners presuppose the existence of their referent (according to the Frege-Strawson view of de-nites). !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #$ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi #$ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete She also notes that DGs support various types of exceptional individuals, according to whether they express inductive generalizations or de-nitional statements. According to the non-de-nitional (inductive) interpretation, actual individuals can be used as exceptions, as in ((((). In this case, reference is made to an actual set of professors. (((() I professori nella mia università portano la cravatta. Ma no, guarda Giovanni. '!e' professors in my university wear a tie. Oh no! Look at John! When a rule is asserted, as in (((.a), where a rule of my university is being described, the generalization hardly tolerates actual individuals as exceptions. Classes of individuals can be instead used as exceptions to rules. (((.) a. Nella mia università i professori portano la cravatta, (*)tranne Gianni In my university, the professors wear a tie, (*)but John b. Nella mia università i professori portano una cravatta, tranne quelli associati In my university, the professors wear a tie, but the associate ones Based on Farkas and de Swart's assumption that DG denotes a maximal set of entities, Mari (($%%a) proposes an account that explicitly captures these distinctions and which spells out more carefully the role played by situations. Moreover, the proposed account derives the intensionality of the maximal referent introduced by the de-nite in a more principled way (without assuming that by virtue of denoting the maximal entity of a lattice, that entity is intensional, as in Chierchia (%!!#)). Her view builds on Schwarzschild's (($$!) recent implementation according to which de-nites denote a -xed set of elements in a situation and come equipped in the logical form with a situation variable. Along with Kratzer (($$(), Mari assumes that situations are parts of worlds. Situations and worlds are thus introduced as variables in the LF. Various operations can be enacted over the domain of these variables, and thus various interpretations can be obtained. %. +e world variable and the situation variable are lambda-abstracted ((('). In this case, once the world and the situation of evaluation are -xed, what the sentence asserts is that the members of a maximal sum (represented as "X) all have a certain property Q. Q being a distributive predicate, universal quanti-cation over members of the maximal entity denoted by the plural de-nite is obtained. (((') !s,w "X(P("X, s,w) " +x , "XQ("X, s,w)) For a given world w, a situation s, and the maximal sum X of individuals, the maximal sum is P in s,w, and for all elements x in X, x is Q in s,w. With these binding of the variables s and w, the inductive generalization is obtained. +is analysis applies to ((((). Since it is entailed that there are actual individuals, actual exceptional individuals can be accommodated. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction #% (. +e world variable and the situation variable are bound by a universal quanti-er ((()). In this case the de-nitional reading of the sentence is obtained: if one of the members of the maximal sum is a P entity, then it is also a Q entity. ((()) +s,w "X(P("X, s,w) - +x , "XQ(x, s,w)) For all worlds w, situations s, and the maximal sum X, if the maximal sum is P in s,w, then, for all elements x in X, x is Q in s,w. +is analysis applies to (((.b). Since the existence of actual individuals is not entailed by the expressed de-nition, it is di3cult to accommodate actual individuals as exceptions. +e idea behind the latitudes of accommodation of exceptions is that these have to be of the same semantic type as the individuals which the generalization is about. When the generalization is about actual individuals, actual individuals can be used as exceptions.When the generalization is about classes (i.e. sets of actual and non-actual individuals bearing a certain description), classes can be used as exceptions. .. In a third con-guration, the world is lambda-abstracted and the situation variable is bound by the universal quanti-er. (((&) !w,+s "X(P("X, s,w) " +x , "XQ("X, s,w)) For a given world w, for all situations s and the maximal sum X, the maximal sum is P in s,w, and for all elements x in X, x is Q in s,w. +is derives the intended interpretation for ((("). In these worlds, in all situations in which there is a madrigal, a madrigal is popular. (((") I madrigali sono popolari. (see (((%b)) !e madrigals are popular. +e analysis proposed byMari (($%%a) strengthens the point we havemade above: the force of the generalization depends on the type of the situation/world that is targeted (see also Corblin, present volume). If actual situations and worlds are considered, (((') is obtained. If non-actual situations andworlds are considered ((()) is obtained. +is explains howDGs are able to express both de-nitional andnon-de-nitional statements, as only ((()) expresses the causal relationwhich is characteristic of de-nitional statements and is absent from non-de-nitional ones (analyzed as in (((')). Moreover, treating DGs (and BPs) as referring to sets of individuals, and treating universal quanti-cation as brought about by the distributive predicates -nds some support in recent works in cognitive science showing that generics appear earlier than quanti-ers in natural language (see discussion in section (%...(..) below). %...%.%." Plural inde-nites in French +e question of the interpretation of plural generic inde-nites (des, Fr.; dei, It. . . . ) in Romance languages has been overlooked in the literature on generics, mostly because the distributions are puzzling. Here we !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi #( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete focus on French.+e core observations related to the use of des N in generic sentences are the following. %. Des N is not always felicitous in contexts where un N is. (((#) a. Un carré a quatre côtés. A square has four sides. (((#) b. *Des carrés ont quatre côtés. 'des' squares have four sides. (. Des can be used when a group1* denoting noun is used. (((!) Des jumeaux se ressemblent dans les moindres détails. 'Des' twins resemble each other to the smallest detail. .. Des N can be used when N is modi-ed (see Heyd ($$(). ((.$) Des carrés bien formés ont quatre côtés. 'Des' well-formed squares have four sides. Various views have been proposed for these data (see in particular de Swart %!!%; Corblin %!!"; Dobrovie-Sorin and Laca %!!&, and Dobrovie-Sorin andMari ($$"a,b). As for the latter case, it has been argued that themodi-er introduces awhen-clause, which goes into the restriction of GEN, which, in this case quanti-es over the situations that this restriction provides (the analysis provided is along the lines of de Swart %!!%). Individuals are bound to situations via a skolem function f . ((.%) GEN s [well-formed (f (s), s)] [four-sided (f (s), s)] A disagreement remains for the contrast between (((#b) and (((!). Corblin (%!!") explains that des is avoided in generic sentences for optimality reasons. Since the generalizations using the inde-nite singular (((#) and the inde-nite plural would both concern singular individuals, the inde-nite singular is preferred. +is explanation does not elucidate under what conditions des can be used. Dobrovie-Sorin and Mari (($$"a,b) have proposed that des can be used only if the nouns contribute a suitable domain of quanti-cation for GEN.+ey propose the following rule of quanti-cation: ((.() Constraint on quanti*cation: a quanti-er can only bind individuals. Following Link (%!#') and Landman (%!#!b), they assume that groups are individual and thus can be bound by GEN.+e LF that they propose for (((!) is given in ((..): ((..) GEN X[X is a group of twins][X resemble each other] 1* Here we use the term informally. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #. of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction #. Dobrovie-Sorin, present volume, further explores this hypothesis, resorting to a ban against quanti-cation over part-whole structures, in line with Dobrovie-Sorin and Mari (($$"a,b). ".'.% Genericity and normality We conclude this introduction by considering the relation between genericity and normality and comparing three views of the notion of normality. +e theories presented here do not consider the lexical contribution of the determiners, and mainly focus on plurals in English. We begin by considering Ariel Cohen's (%!!!a) statistical view, and contrast it with more normative views, such as those of Asher and Pelletier (%!!") and Nickel (($$#). ".'.%." Inductive judgments Ariel Cohen (%!!!) proposes a uni-ed account of generics ((.'), and frequency statements ((.)), in terms of relative probability. ((.') Birds ,y. ((.)) Birds always ,y. His probability-based analysis is intended to account for some puzzles, among which are the following: %. A generic can be true even in the absence of instances supporting the generalization it expresses, as shown by the classical example ((.&): ((.&) Mary handles the mail from Antarctica. +is is said to be true even for the descriptive reading of ((.&): according to Cohen, in order to have the truth of ((.&) without actual supporting instances it is not necessary to give a prescriptive reading of this sentence, which would be motivated e.g. by the description of Mary's duties in her job contract.11 (. Generics and frequency statements are time-intensional but not worldintensional, as is shownby the truth-conditional di/erence between ((.") and ((.#) in the scenario described below ((.#), and by the truth-conditional equivalence between ((.") and ((.!) in the scenario described below ((.!). ((.") A computer (always) computes the daily weather forecast. ((.#) A computer (always) computes the main news item. Scenario: +e daily weather forecast turns out to be the main news item today, as it is predicted that a big rainstorm will hit Paris. 11 It seems to us that the truth of ((.&) under its descriptive reading requires that actual instances ofMary handling the mail from Antarctica have occurred by the reference time. It is precisely the past occurrence of events of the relevant type which enables one to make a descriptive generalization. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #' of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi #' Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete ((.!) A computer (always) computes Mary's favorite column. Scenario: Mary's favorite column in the newspaper is the column of the daily weather forecast. Notice that in the rainstorm scenario the descriptions the daily weather forecast and the main news item turn out to corefer w.r.t. the present time, but do not corefer w.r.t. any time, as tomorrow the main news item might well be something other than the weather forecast.+ismeans that the two descriptions are not intensionally equivalent w.r.t. the time parameter. On the other hand, in the scenario ofMary's favorite column not only do the descriptions the daily weather forecast and Mary's favorite column corefer w.r.t. the present time, but, given the general stability of people's preferences, they corefer w.r.t. any time within a signi-cant part ofMary's lifespan (possibly within the whole of Mary's lifespan, if Mary's preference persists throughout all her life), so that they can be said to be (at least in part) intensionally equivalent w.r.t. the time parameter. However, given the contingence of Mary's preference for the weather forecast, which need not hold in other possible worlds, the descriptions the daily weather forecast and Mary's favorite column are not intensionally equivalent w.r.t. the world parameter.+is would show that intensional equivalence w.r.t. the time parameter is all that is required to preserve the truth of generics and frequency statements. .. +ey are di/erent from temporary generalizations, as shown by the fact that, if all SupremeCourt justices by sheer happenstance have a prime social security number at this moment, (('$) would be true but (('%) would be false: (('$) All Supreme Court justices have a prime social security number. (('%) Supreme Court justices have a prime social security number. '. +ey imply a regular distribution of events in time. ). Judgments concerning their truth are more uncertain than judgments concerning the truth of quanti-ed sentences. &. For them to be true it is not enough that the majority of individuals which are in their actual domain satisfy their predicates. As to the Logical Form of such statements, Cohen (%!!!) assumes that they involve dyadic quanti-ers expressing relations between properties. +e quanti-er in a frequency statement like ((.)) is the frequency adverb always, whereas in a generics like ((.') it is a covert generic quanti-er GEN.+e Logical Forms of ((.') and ((.)) are (('() and (('.), respectively, given along with the relative probability judgments that they correspond to: (('() GEN(bird(x), ,y(x)) P(,y | bird) > $.) (the probability of an object ,ying given that the object is a bird is greater than $.)) (('.) always(bird(x), ,y(x)) P(,y | bird) = % (the probability of an object ,ying given that the object is a bird is equal to %) !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #) of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction #) +e probability judgments reported above are interpreted in a Branching Time framework (+omason %!#'), the idea being that when we make a probability judgment, not only do we consider the sequence of events that we have actually observed, but we also consider possible continuations of that sequence into the future. De-nition: Relative probability in Branching Time P($ | %)= l i+ for every admissible history H and & > ;, there is an initial segment H' of H such that for every H" which is a continuation of H' and is continued by H the relative probability of $ among % in H" di/ers from l by less than &. Admissible histories are required to be su3ciently long so as to have the relative probabilities in the subhistories H" come close to the limiting value l by whatever value &, however small it may be, and to contain instances of %, as histories without such instances will make the relative probabilities of $ among % unde-ned, they are required to be continuations of the actual history, and to be similar to the actual history. On this analysis ((.') is true just in case in every admissible history H, the probability of an object x ,ying in H given that x is a bird inH is some value l greater than $.). A homogeneity requirement is introduced as a presupposition of generics and frequency statements, according to which the relative probability in every part of a suitable partition of any admissible history H must be the same as the probability in the whole H. Suitable partitions are contextually determined, and sometimes it may be unclear what partition is relevant and di/erent speakers may entertain di/erent partitions.+is explains why speakers give more uncertain judgments about the truth of generics than about the truth of overtly quanti-ed statements. ".'.%.% Reasoning with default Pelletier and Asher (%!!") propose a modal conditional analysis of generics in which a relation of accessibility between worlds based on a relativized notion of normality plays a crucial role. One of the main points on which the authors base their proposal is that generics have truth conditions, though these are more complex than the truth conditions of episodic sentences. As we have mentioned above, the opposite view that they reject is that generics have the status of rules and thus would not be truth-valued assertions in the -rst place. Another point to which they devote signi-cant discussion is the intensional character of generics, and in this respect they make an extensive criticism of purely extensional quanti-cational theories. A central property that they wish to explain is the well-known tolerance to exceptions, e.g. the fact that the truth of (('') is compatible with the existence of dogs that due to particular accidents are not four-legged, and their related ability to trigger logical inferences based on a defeasible rule of modus ponens, as shown by ((')). (('') Dogs have four legs. ((')) (a) Dogs have four legs. (b) Fido is a dog. (c)+erefore (defeasibly) Fido has four legs. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #& of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi #& Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete Concerning the problem of tolerance to exceptions, particularly puzzling are sentences like (('&). (('&) Peafowls lay eggs. Sentence (('&) poses a special problem insofar as the tolerance to exceptions that it displays is massive: assuming temporarily that generics are quanti-cational, all male peafowls are excluded from the domain of quanti-cation. On the intensional analysis they propose, generics turn out to have truth conditions, which for the authors is a welcome result.+e modal conditional analysis can be illustrated by considering the logical form that it assigns to sentence (('").+is is given in (('#), and makes use of a dyadic operator GEN with similar syntactic properties as the GEN of Krifka et al. (%!!)).+e modal truth conditions of the GEN formula are then given by the quanti-cational formula (('!) below, according to which the generic operator is de-ned by means of a universal quanti-er binding x and another universal quanti-er over possible worlds entertaining a certain relation to the actual world (as in Stalnaker's (%!&#) and Lewis's (%!".) classical analyses of conditional sentences): (('") Birds ,y. (('#) GEN[x][bird(x)] [ ,y(x)] (('!) +x+w [(x is a bird in w & w is normal with respect to w; and to x's being a bird) - (x ,ies in w)] +e truth conditions in (('!) can be paraphrased as follows: for every object x, the set of worlds that are normal with respect both to the actual world and to the proposition of x's being a bird is a subset of the set of worlds in which x ,ies. +is analysis, though involving a universal quanti-er over individuals, can account for the fact that (('") can be true in spite of some birds (e.g. penguins or ostriches) not being able to ,y. +e mechanism by which this is accounted for is the intensional component represented by the universal quanti-cation over possible worlds: individual birds (including penguins) are considered with respect to possible worlds in which they possess all the properties that are normal for a bird in the actual world, and then they are claimed to ,y relative to such worlds. +e intuition is that relative to worlds in which penguins possess all the properties that are normal for a bird in the actualworld, penguins do ,y. +is is an intuition that we could express by the true conditional If penguins possessed all the properties that are actually normal for a bird, then penguins would -y.+is analysis also explains why logical inferences based on a rule of modus ponens, drawn from a major generic premise, are defeasible: the reason is that the minor premise, being a factual statement, does not say whether the world relative to which Birdie is said to be a bird (i.e. the actual world) is one in which Birdie possesses all the properties that are normal for a bird in the actual world. +e crucial point here is that by the accessibility relation underlying GEN it is not guaranteed that the !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #" of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction #" actual world itself is among the possible worlds accessible from it (the accessibility is not a re-exive relation). To deal with the massive exception tolerance of the duck example considered above, the authors acknowledge that the intensional component encompassing the normality condition is not enough. For one thing, we may observe that besides sentences like (('&) above, there are also sentences like (()$), which also exhibit massive exception tolerance: (()$) Peacocks have colorful feathers on their tails. If the only factor that was responsible for the exception-tolerance property of (('&) was the normality condition seen above, then (('&) and (()$), which are intuitively both true, could not be both true: if it were normal for peafowls to lay eggs, then this would imply that it would be normal for peafowls to be hens (as only female peafowls can lay eggs), and this in turn would imply that it would not be normal for peafowls to have colorful feathers on their tails (as only male peafowls can have such colorful feathers), but this would mean that (()$) would be false, which is not. +e authors propose that there is also a mechanism of covert domain restriction which is operative in examples like (('&) and (()$), by which the former is somehow restricted to peahens, while the latter to peacocks. +is suggestion is tentative, but the authors present it without developing it into an explicit account. Asher and Pelletier (this volume) take on this issue and deal with it more in depth. ".'.%.' !e notion of 'normality' Nickel (($$!) criticizes quanti-cational views of generics by showing the failure of what he takes to be the best possible implementation of the quanti-cational paradigm, namely the view for which the generic quanti-er has the force of most. He refers to quanti-cational views of generics based on most as majority-based views, and criticizes them on the basis of true generics like (()%), which he claims to be equivalent to the sentential coordination (()(): (()%) Elephants live in Africa and Asia. (()() Elephants live in Africa and elephants live in Asia. What makes his criticism particularly interesting for us is that unlike previous criticisms of the quanti-cational view of generics, such as the now classical analysis of Pelletier andAsher (%!!"), it does not consider an extensional version of this view, but a sophisticated intensional version, and shows how even such a sophisticated version does not stand up to the threat of cases like (()%) above. Consider a simple version of the majority-based view (one which is already sophisticated enough to account for the intensional character of generics). On this account, (().) has an LF like (()'), whose truth conditions are informally stated in (())): (().) Ravens are black. (()') GEN[ravens] [black] (())) GEN[ravens] [black] is true i+ in a suitable domain, most ravens are black !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) ## of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi ## Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete By relativizing to a suitable domain, (())), one accounts for the modal nature of generics, in particular one excludes that (().) may wind up false in a case in which, by a mere accident, all ravens actually existing at the time of evaluation have become white. While this analysis may well account for the truth conditions of (().), Nickel observes that in order to cope with (()&), and with the fact that this sentence does not entail (()") (far from being so, the former is true while the latter is false), a majoritybased view has to accommodate a restriction of the domain of quanti-cation. (()&) Chickens lay eggs. (()") Chickens are hens. Intuitively, when we evaluate (()&), we consider the distribution of the property of laying eggs not amongst chickens tout court, but amongst a restricted domain, the domain of those chickens 'that are even in the business of producing o/spring' (Nickel ($$!: &.') – where this restrictive condition entails that such chickens must be hens. +is domain restriction, asNickel recognizeswas pointed out byAriel Cohen (%!!!b), is determined on the basis of the sentence's main predicate lay eggs, which is clearly related to the possibleways of producing o/spring.+is account can predict why (()") is false: the restriction induced by the predicate hens is to chickens that have some gender, and this is a much larger domain than in the case of (()&). Following Ariel Cohen (%!!!b) in assuming predicate-induced domain restrictions, the general form of the majority-based view can be represented as in (()#), where ALT(F) is the set of alternatives to the property F and 1ALT(F) is the property of having at least one of the properties in the set ALT(F): (()#) GEN[A] [F] is true i+ in a suitable domain, most As that are 1ALT(F) are F In the case of (()&),1ALT(lay eggs) is equivalent to the property of being able to produce o/spring in some way or other, so that the sentence is predicted to be true just in case in a suitable domain (larger than the actual world at the time of evaluation), most chickens that are able to produce o/spring in some way or other, produce o/spring by laying eggs. Nickel shows that even this very sophisticated majority-based view of generics cannot account for the truth of the equivalent generics (()%) and (()(). According to this theory, (()() has the LF (()!), whose truth conditions are ((&$): (()!) GEN[elephants; live in Africa] & G[elephants; live in Asia] ((&$) GEN[elephants] [live in Africa] & GEN[elephants] [live in Asia] is true i+ in a suitable domain, most elephants that are1ALT(live in Africa) live in Africa and in a suitable domain, most elephants that are 1ALT(live in Asia) live in Asia Given the plausible assumptions that the suitable domains in the two conjuncts of the truth condition in ((&$) are the same domain, and that the domain restriction !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) #! of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction #! properties 1ALT(live in Africa) and 1ALT(live in Asia) in this truth condition are the same property (plausibly, the property of living in some habitat or other), the majority-based analysis makes the wrong prediction that for (()() to be true (and the same holds for (()%)), there must be elephants that live both in Africa and in Asia, which is plainly incorrect. In view of problematic examples like (()%), Nickel proposes an inquiry-based account in which the truth of a generic sentence is not a matter of what is true most of the time but a matter of what inductive target is established in a conversation, where an inductive target in turn determines a way (or, possibly and crucially, di/erent alternative ways) of being normal in some respect.+e concept of being normal is assumed by Nickel as a primitive concept, for which no analysis in statistical terms is provided. In the case of the problematic (()%), a plausible scenario in which we can imagine this sentence uttered is one where the inductive target of the conversation concerns the habitats in which elephants normally live, and the crucial point is that this inductive target determines more than one way of being normal: relative to one such way w%, it is normal for elephants to live in Asia, while relative to another such way w(, it is normal for them to live in Africa. Nickel's intuitive point here is that it is equally normal for elephants to live in Africa and to live in Asia, although relative to di/erent ways of being normal (with respect to the same feature of living in a certain habitat). +e truth conditions that Nickel's account assigns to (()() (and hence to the equivalent sentence (()%)) are given in ((&%), where we still have (universal) quanti-cation over elephants, but this is crucially dependent on a higher existential quanti-cation over ways of being normal, so that the domain of the universal quanti-er is not the same in the two conjuncts: ((&%) GEN[elephants] [live in Africa] & GEN[elephants] [live in Asia] is true i+ there is a way w% of being a normal elephant w.r.t. its habitat, and all elephants that are normal in w% live in Africa, and there is a way w( of being a normal elephant w.r.t. its habitat, and all elephants that are normal in w( live in Asia Weobserve thatNickel's semantic account of generics, like those ofAsher andPelletier (%!!") and Ariel Cohen (%!!!a), retains a crucial aspect of the quanti-cational views, namely the idea that generics of the form As are Bs do ultimately involve a form of quanti-cation over individuals exemplifying A's property, in this case universal quanti-cation. In this respect, it must be noted that, although he criticizes previous accounts of generics based on the idea that they express some kind of quanti-cational relation between the subject and the predicate, and in particular Cohen's proposal to specify the quanti-cational import of the generic quanti-er in terms of relative frequency of a property inside a reference class, Nickel's own account as well seems to leave it open how we should make sense of the observation made by some psychologists who report that generics are acquired comparatively earlier than quanti-cational sentences (e.g. Leslie ($$#)-which would seem to suggest that generics might not be quanti-cational in the end (as noted by Carlson %!""b). Cimpian et al. (($%$) have !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) !$ of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi !$ Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete recently claimed: 'Although generics imply that the properties they refer to are prevalent (Gelman, Star, and Flukes, ($$(), we argue that they do not mark quanti-cation per se (see also Carlson %!""a; Leslie ($$#; Prasada ($$$). Generics are a linguistic means of expressing knowledge about categories, and as such their interpretation is unlikely to be based solely on frequency information.' Even though Nickel's proposal still retains semantic machinery from quanti-cational approaches, his emphasis on the process by which the topic of a conversation determines a way in which members of a category can be said to be normal and on a primitive concept of normality, not de-ned in frequentist terms, makes it closer to such theoretical perspectives, currently more familiar amongst cognitive scientists, as we have brie,y recalled above. ".'.' Presentation of the papers in the volume A -rst set of papers investigate genericity in the subject DP. Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin's paper 'Generic Plural and Mass Inde-nites' investigates the constraints on the distribution of plural inde-nite generics in French and investigates the constraints on plural quanti-cation. Bert Le Bruyn, Min Que, and Henriëtte de Swart's paper '+e Scope of Bare Nominals'. Carlson (%!""b) established that bare plurals in English always take narrow scope. +e authors give a full presentation of the English version of the experiment and a preview of the Mandarin Chinese and Dutch versions. +ese results shed doubt on the received view of the scopal properties of English bare plurals and, if replicated for other languages, will force a change in the way we model the semantics of bare nominals universally. Stefan Hinterwimmer's paper 'Free Relatives as Kind-Denoting Terms' shows that the puzzling behavior of Free Relatives as de-nites in some contexts and inde-nites in others is best accounted for if we locate the ambiguity in a covert operator that either returns an extensional or an intensional (maximal) sum individual. Gerhard Schaden, in his paper 'Two Ways of Referring to Generalities in German', shows that in nominal 'reference to a generality' in German, nouns may appear either bare or with a de-nite determiner. He investigates the distribution of both variants and the relative impact of discourse structure. +e following set of papers address the question of genericity in the verbal domain. Nora Boneh and Edit Doron's paper 'Hab and Gen in the Expression of Habituality' argues, based on the study of English habitual forms, that two di/erent modal operators may be found in the expression of habituality: Gen, a quanti-cational modal operator, and Hab, a summational modal operator.+e paper also discusses how the proposed operators interact with mood on the one hand, and two di/erent aspectual !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) !% of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi Introduction !% dimensions on the other: a viewpoint aspect distinction between imperfective and perfective, and a perspective distinction between internal and external (retrospective) perspective. Patricia Cabredo Hofherr's paper 'Bare Habituals and Singular Inde-nites' examines habitual sentences across various languages. Based on the scope properties of bare singulars in bare habituals she argues that habituals should not be analyzed in terms of a scope-taking plurality operation but in terms of a plurality allowing distributive readings with plural arguments. +is plurality resembles degree expressions such as beaucoup 'a lot', as degree expressions similarly do not induce scope ambiguities. Fabio Del Prete's paper, 'Imperfectivity and Habituality in Italian' proposes a semantic analysis of Italian imperfective sentences which uniformly accounts for their habitual and progressive readings. +e main contribution is a non-quanti-cational account of imperfective habituals, based on a semantic analysis of verbs in terms of plural events and a modal/temporal analysis of imperfective aspect as a forward-expanding operator in a branching time model. Anastasia Giannakidou and Eleni Staraki's paper 'Ability, Action and Causation: From Pure Ability to Force' shows empirically that Greek distinguishes ability as a precondition for action, and ability as initiating and sustaining force for action. +e key, they argue, is not perfective aspect (as is commonly thought), since actualized ability emerges in Greek also with imperfective aspect and present tense.+e crucial factor, we argue, is causation, which triggers a shi0 from pure ability to ability as actioninitiating energy. Paula Menéndez-Benito's paper 'On Dispositional Sentences' deals with the interpretation of dispositional sentences such as !is car goes %(( khp. It defends a hypothesis, originally proposed by Dahl (%!")), according to which dispositional sentences express existential quanti-cation over worlds. Following up on work by Lekakou (($$)), the covert possibility modal contributed by dispositionals is taken to select a particular type of circumstantial modality. Friederike Moltmann's paper 'On the Distinction between Abstract States, Concrete States, and Tropes' discusses and defends a distinction between 'abstract states' and 'concrete states', a distinction that has recently been proposed by Maienborn to account for the peculiar semantic behavior of stative verbs. An explicit ontological account of the notion of an abstract state is given and the distinction between abstract and concrete states is related to the category of tropes (particularized properties). +e last set of papers address the question of the interpretation of generic sentences. Nicholas Asher and Francis Je+ry Pelletier, in their paper 'More Truths about Generic Truth', defend and extend the modal approach to the analysis of generics.+ey review several recent criticisms of this view and argue that the view withstands them. We extend the modal approach by providing a sketch of a compositional analysis. !"#–$–%!–!&!%#$–" $%-Mari-et-al-c$%-drv Mari-et-al (Typeset by SPi) !( of ''' August %%, ($%( ":)& OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF–REVISES, !!/"/#$!#, SPi !( Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade, and Fabio Del Prete Ariel Cohen's paper 'No Quanti-cation without Reinterpretation' asserts that the covert quanti-er GEN is generated by the hearer, as a process of reinterpretation of the input. It establishes a di/erence between the generic and the habitual readings. In generics, GEN is generated by a pragmatic process of Predicate Transfer, whereas in habituals it is generated by a semantic process of type-shi0ing. +us while it is the same quanti-er in both constructions, the process by which it is generated is responsible for the di/erences between them. Francis Corblin's paper '+e Roots of Genericity: Inde-nite Singulars vs De-nite Plurals' builds on the observation that generic readings of singular inde-nites in French (as opposed to plural de-nites) are rare and always come with a modal ,avor. It is assumed that this reading is triggered by a mechanism of Universal Closure, which is only triggered when the default mechanism, Existential Closure, is ruled out. Manfred Krifka's paper 'De-nitional Generics' investigates the interpretation of indefinite generic sentences and argues that these are de-nitional statements. Bernhard Nickel's paper 'Dutchmen are Good Sailors: Generics and Gradability' presents a novel treatment of generics such as 'Dutchmen are good sailors', exploiting the interaction between a generic operator and gradable predicates.