Referential Properties of Generic Terms Denoting 
Things and Situations 
Elena V. PADUCHEVA 
Institute of Scientific and 
Technical Information, 
Academy of Sciences of the USSR 
Baltijskaja 1~ 
125219 Noscow 
Abstract 
(~ene:x'ic terms cam be divided into two 
refercnbi:Qly different groups. Generic term 
oi" l,h~ :~':i~'st group is a name (or a definite 
dcsc.ci.ption) of the corresponding class of 
Objg>(;i;:~ (of° J~ ~:.i~ U a r s in South America 
~i~'f. e~j~!.!~ci.; T h e w h a I e is a mammal). 
i!~ fo:-g~t\].er:\[c terms of the second group, we 
p,:'opose i;o treat them as genera\], terms (in 
~hc sense o±' WoOoQuine)." -they are considered 
-to be ~'eferentially incomplete expressions 
~,~hiub.~ "when constituting the th-eme of a ge-, 
nez-i~: p,:,opus:i, tton, undergo quantification 
which :i.s exp:t'esse(J~ explicit\],y or implicit- 
\[!.y~ inside the verb phrase° 
\].o Ira-trod lotion 
One of the mosl, important aspects of 
langu~ge comp~-ehension is comprehension of 
~.- e f e _~ e n c e -,- :L~e~ of a corresponden- 
ce })etweez~ ~{ ~Je~itence (and some of its consbi- 
friends) and reality, which is brought about 
by the speaker in the speech act. As is 
usual for a logical approach to language, 
all types of reference, with the exception 
of concrete reference, are reduced to quan- 
tification of different kinds, and quantifi- 
cation can be defined~ with a sufficient de- 
g:L.ee of prec:ision, by stating truth conditi- 
ons fox' sentences with the corresponding 
quantifier° ~eanwhile generic expressions 
(jl.t \]:)atctJ.ou\].ar~ gene'rio terms) constitute a 
puzzle for a theory of reference, for any 
i)z, oposed formulation of truth conditions 
for .~Jentm:l.ces with generic terms is easily 
refuted by contradicting examples. Thus, an 
attempt to reduce referential meaning of 
the g(me:cic indefinite article in English 
to 'th~vl~ of the quantifier adjective 
(m~de in Jespersen 1927) can be demonstra- 
ted to be futile; in fact, statement (la), 
for exaunple, is usually considered to be 
true, while (lb) is definitely false (thougjl 
and all are synonyms): 
(1) a. N o r v e ~ c y vysokogo rosta 
w e g i a n s are tall' 
n o r v e ~ c y vysokogo 
'E o r 
b. V s e 
rosta 
'A 1 1 
tall' 
n o r w e ~ i a n s are 
An attempt to capture referential as- 
pects of the meaning of a generic term with 
the help of a "quantifier of majority" (Par- 
sons 1970) or a quantifier 'usually' raay be, 
perhaps, successful for sentence (la), which 
is approximately synonymous to sentence (2): 
(2) N o r v e ~ c y oby~no ~ysokogo rosta 
'N o r w e g i a n s are usually tall~ 
but the idea of majority has nothing to do 
with the meaning of such sentences as 
(3) Kit - mlekopitaju~ee 
'The whale is a m~al' 
(indeed, (3) ~ (3')*A whale is.usually a 
mammal); or with the meaning of sentence 
(4) A t o m sostoit iz jadra i elektronov 
'A t o m consists of the nucleus and 
electrons'. 
A suggestion was made to the effect that 
generic terms do not refer to entities of 
the real world at all. Thus, according to 
Wierzbicka 1980, in such sentences as (1) 
tallness is attributed not to a norwegian 
(i.e. not to a real person), but to our 
i m a g e of a norwegian. However, this 
claim, even if it is true, cannot be true 
for all species of generic expressions. Por 
one thing, generic terms can occur in the 
context of identity sentences, cf. 
(5) Deti - ~to budu~ie ljudl 
'Children are men to be'. 
And what is identity'if not identity of re- 
ference? 501 
From a formal point of view, what cha- 
racterizes generic noun phrases~ at least in 
languages without articles, such as Russian, 
is the fact that they do not comprise any 
determiners or quantifier adjectives, not 
only in the explicite but in the implicite 
form as well. In other words, generic ~Ps 
evade referential characterization: no words 
explicitel~ expressing the m o d e o f 
r e f e r e n c e of a noun phrase (cf. Pa~ 
du~eva \].985) can occur within a ge~leric NP; 
moreover, no words can be added to a generic 
NP to ~ake clear its referential meaning or 
meanings, as is obvious from examples (1) - 
(5). The analysis which follows aims at pro- 
viding generic l~Ps with such an interpreta- 
tion of their referential import that would 
match this formal characterization. Our di- 
rect aim is to provide an analysis for gene- 
ric NPs of hussian, but many of the problems 
discussed are semantic in nature and thus 
language independent. 
2. Generic phrases denoting situations 
Generic use is co~m~zon not only for noun 
phrases denoting objects, like thosein (J)-~ 
(5), but also for noun phrases with proposi- 
tional meaning, cfo 
(6) C v e t e n i j e r~i vsegda napomi- 
naet ~mue na~alo vojny 
'F \] o w e r i n g o f r y e always 
reminds me of the begining of the war'. 
(7) U b i j s t v o otvratitel'no 
'A s s a s s i n a t i o n is abomin- 
able ' . 
}.ioreover, generic uses are possible also 
for predicative denominations of situations: 
(8) It often happens that a y o u n g 
man overestimates 
his resources. 
(9) Operation is always dangerous when 
t h e p a t i e n t i s m o r e 
than 70. 
(lO) K e d i n e s always in a hurry° 
(ll) She usually got frightened when h e 
brought her flowers. 
(12) R y b a ~ n i e t s golovy 
'A f i s h r o t s beginning with 
its head'. 
(13) J o h n b e a t s h i s w i f e 
in the yard. 
Study of generic reference is usually 
confined to one particular class of generic 
5O2 
terms ~ to those denoting objects° What we 
claim is that at least in this case broaden~ 
ing the object of investigation will not 
complicate the whole picture; just the oppo -~ 
site, it may contribute to its clarification° 
3. Gener:\[cs as a grs~nmatical problem 
Generic use is a problem not only fo:c 
referential semantics but also for a de~, 
scriptive gra~rm~ar of a language° To mention 
just two points° 
a) In the context of a generic NP grar~,.- 
matical Number (i.e. the opposition of Sin.,, 
gular vs. Plural) cannot retain its usual 
meaning. Ilowever, on the one hand, the 
choice of ~umber in generic NPs is not ri- 
gidly regulated~ i.e. synonymous variation 
of Number is possible, cfo 
(14) a, L o 5 a d' - umnoje ~yvotnoje 
'A h o r s e is a clever animal'° 
b. L o ~ a d i ~-, m~uyje ~yvo~nyje 
'11 o r s e s are clever animals'° 
On the other hand, Singular and Plural in 
generic, N~s -a~ce not- Tz~el~ "i:n-be-rcl~angeable 
thus, it is impossible to say 
(15) U has v dome zavels'a t a r a k a n 
(Sg) 
in the meaning 'There are cockroaches in 
our house', if only in the context of a 
"lan&axage game", and it is absolutely impos-. 
sible to use sentence 
(16) ~Glaz u ~toj ryby imeet formu 
g r u ~ (Pl) 
in order to convey the meaning 'The eye of 
this fish has the shape of a p~ a r'o There 
is a strong feeling that the choice of grsm~- 
matical Number in generic NPs is dependent 
upon their referential properties; in other 
words, it seems that different classes of 
generic NPs can be delimitated with differ~ 
ent requirements as for the choice of Nma~ 
bet. 
b) Another grammatical problem connected 
with generic expressions, concerns the choirs 
ce of Tense and Aspect of the verb in a ge~ 
neric proposition. In Lyons 1978 it is sug- 
gested that generic propositions lie out of 
the scope of the Tense opposition (ice, that 
they are omnitemporal). Lyons claims that 
this thesis is not disproved by such examp~ 
les as 
(17) D i n o s a u r s were peaceful 
animals , 
because Past Tense in such sentences corres- 
ponds only-to the fact that dinosaurs are 
extinct and not to the fact that they have 
stopped being peaceful, as would be the case 
if Past Tense had been used here in its usu- 
al meaningo Still for such sentence as 
(18) D i n o s a u r s died out (became 
ext inc t ) 
it would be absurd to maintain that it is 
omaitemporal: in (\].8) Past Tense has its 
most com~,~on meaning° 
4.. Generic term and generic proposition 
The main conclusion that can be drawn 
from the existing literature on generics 
(cfo a substantial review in Carlson 1978)is 
that generic expessions are heterogeneous 
(W~ that in Russian even less information 
can be got from the gra~mgatical form of a 
generic term than in English, because of the 
lack of ~rt.lcles)o Thus the line of analysis 
Which we follow in this study consists in 
making a series of delimitations that would 
divlde generic expressions into sew.~ral dif~ 
ferent groups so that each statement would 
apply only to that group of generic expres- 
sions :for which it :Ls trne. 
~'irs\[ o±' all, it J.s necessary to sepaz,a- 
te generic NPs when used in 'the context of a 
generic proposition (or 
generic statement) from their occurrences in 
all otheL" contexts. We propose the following 
definition: A proposition is called generic 
if a generic noun phrase G constitutes its 
n o t \[ o n a 1 t h e m e (topic), i.e. 
if this proposition is a b o u t Go Thus, 
in (19)proposition is generic: 
(19) P r o f e s s i o n a 1 m a t h e - 
m a t i c i a n will read the book 
by M.Atja with pleasure. 
o\[ndeed, (19) is a statement a b o u t pro- 
fessional mathematicians° Neanwhile, (20) is 
not a generic statement- ~ 
(20) The book by NoAtja will be of inte~ 
res-\[t for p r o f e s s i o n a 1 
mathematicians . 
In fact, (20) is not about mathematicians# 
its them8 is a concrete individualized ob~ 
ject ~ a book by ~oAtjao 
Generic NPs constituting the subject of 
a generic proposition are more readi\].y sub- 
~itted to semantic analysis, for in this con~- 
text referential import of genericity can be 
represented, at least in some oontexts~ a~ a 
kind. of quantification. Indeed, if a generic 
NP is a subject of a proposition, then the 
quantifier which bounds this NP has maximum 
scope~ its scope is the whole sentence. And 
if so then the referencial import of this 
quantifier, and hence of the generic NP, can 
be revealed by means of truth conditions of 
the sentence a s a w h o i e o Other- 
wise, ice. in cases where the generic ~iP 
does not constitute ~he subject of the pro~ 
position, it is altogether unclear, what 
proposition constitutes the scope of ~he 
supposed "generic quantifier"~ Thus, for 
sentences in (21) logical representation is 
a puzzle 
(21) a. Ivan can kill a b e a r o 
b. John doesn't like p o I i c e ~-~ 
men° 
c° Ego zasadili v kameru ~3 m e r t -~ 
niko v 
'He was put into the cell for 
m e n s e n t e n c e d L o 
death' 
But even for generic propositions th~.'re 
is no unique formu\].ation of truth conditi-.~ 
ons valid for all the contexts° To formu~ 
late truth conditions for gener:i.c proposJ_.--~ 
tions exhaustivel~ i~ :is necessary to re~. 
veal all relevant oppositions of contexts, 
linguistic and extralingaistic~ iz~ which 
the generic subject of a generic proposi~ 
tion might occur (note that the subject of 
the proposition need not coincide wJ.th its 
grmamatical subject, especially in ~lussian)o 
5. Generic NPs as names of classes 
In some contexts generic terms can be 
successfully treated as names (or descrip~ 
tions) of the corresponding clans. ~k~r exam- 
ple, generic terms used as subjects of pre-~ 
dicates which are meaningless unless when 
predicated to classes (.as to be a ir~mr!jal; 
to become extinct in examples (3) and (18)), 
are best represented as names of classes (in 
English such' generic terms can only be mark~- 
ed by a definite article~ in Russian they 
have no special distinctive features), Cfo 
(22) Nekogda j a g u a r byl z'aspros~ra~ 
hen pc vsemu zerauomu ~aru 
'Soi~e time ago t h e j a g u a r 
was spread all over the world'° 
In Burton-Roberts 1976 it is c\].aimed that 
5O3 
generic terms which are actually names o:f 
classes, even when \[;hey occupy the thematic 
position in the ut;terance, do not form any 
generic proposition~ ~P denoting a class and 
referring to a class, can be treated as a 
term with concrete re\].'erence and with no cor- 
respo.~(lJ_mg quan. tifier in the logical repre. 
sentatJon of \[.he proposifiion in question, 
It i:~ obvious l;ha6 for generic terms 
that are names o\]' el.asses their posib\[o±t in 
the ~mematie o~: non.-thematic part of the sen.. 
I;ertee is r~'i'ereattai\],v iri'elevttnbo 
'.James of (;\].tt:i;\[.~ei~ .\[,u many respects resem- 
ble .:m,s~ terms (such as )va.Lbe_< , ~pe=t~., :i D--. 
f O:\[TuA~tJ=o\[ \[ e to. ) : l j ke mass te±'ms, names 0\]:' 
cla~ses a) \[~.~.ve sc~l,l;ez'ed \]?ef'ez'ence and 
b) easily, tol_e~-,ate partitive u,~eo ~.\[.zus~k , sen..- 
(23) La l)al'nem gostoke vodjatsj~ t i g -~ 
'There are t i g e :r s in the Far 
does not purport to mean that a i 1 t i - 
g c; r' s \].iv{; in 6he \]!'~r East, exactly like 
t.m n<z, tence .,here z. water in B\].ie Vlcln\].ty 
does not mesa that all water is in the vici- 
nJ By 
6o 9ener:ics as ~eneral ter\[lls 
As .\['o.r t~\]e '%Jpioal" generic expressions 
exemplified, e.go, by (i), (2), (4), we sug- 
gest to Breat them as g e n e r a i 
\[, e :~' m s in the sense of Quine 1953 or 
Carnap 1959o Genera\]. term is an incomplete 
noun phrase, lacking referential specifica-~ 
rich. it has an e x t e n s i o n , which 
is determined by its \].inguistic mear~ing. 
Usually, ~he extension of a general ~erm is 
an :Lnfini%e set (or at least it is a set 
looked ugon as infinite; in other words, it 
is an o p e n set); cf~ extensions of such 
eneral terms as norwe2,~az\]: (float includes 
all norwegians who exisBed~ exist now or 
will exist :in future), ator~, man etc. Gene- 
ral term has no reference - unless it is 
used J.n the context of some a c t u a 1 i - 
z e r (~he term is clue to Sally 1955), that 
converts ~his general term into a singular 
term referring to a definite, object in some 
definiBe speech act. 
.It is usually accepted, that general 
term,~.~ have a tw~ofold usage= the 2 can be used 
as p,'edicates (of. John is a n o r w e ~ J--. 
3 0 4 
~._}.%)~ and besJ.des~ they can be used as sub. 
"\]tac\]tives, but or~ly in the conceit% o:t ~.~n &¢., 
tualizer ,-. a quant:i.:f':ier adjective er ~ de. 
te.rminez, (perhaps, imp\].icite~ i oeo having; a 
zero exponent, as is often the case in a:c%i~ 
Cle-.laoi{.ing langtiages like I{tlssis.n)~ We 
o\].sim th.at gener{~l germs a:('feJ:'d a.l.,qo of the 
third ~,ype of syntaebic and referential, u#Je:~ 
a general term can be u~ed as a subject of e~. 
generic pz'oposition on the co~.ditio.m that 
the quantification in this proposil;ion :i.~ 
a d v e r b i a \].~ J. oe.. qlAaatj~fJeatioll m&-~ ~=- 
kers of the subject fez-m a pari; of the p:~;e • 
dica-l;e, i.eo o J? the verb phrase of the same 
sentence° lm o~her wez'ds~ we propo,'.~e t(; 
treat ge~Jerio terms aq reiere:tzoJ.a\].\]V iD(;oi~t- 
.plebe expressions; their z'ei'erenoe is speoJ..-. 
fled outside the noun p.hrase JBself,. n Uhis 
respect ge~lerio use of \[% noti~1 man i~1%he 
proposition l~,\]aa41 j:s mo77591~ can be JJ en-\[;ifJ~ed~. 
eog. ~ with the use of the same :ooun in SL~oh 
center(is an eiv e~/i ~nan or t~isj_~i~.ta~ where i\[!e\[n 
is def:i.ni~ely ~t general term lacking z"ef'eo-. 
fence) and referential ¢harao~eristios of' '~he 
NP is specified by sorne external me~mso The 
same princi.ple works in such examples as 
(24) There are r J. v e r s t h a b 
d ~:" y u p i a s tl m m e z, 
wh.ere rivez's that dry u ) in sumraer Lr; re- ~--: ..... 1-~ ........... :2. -- & 
£e_rencia\]ly incomplete ~,aP: its re:Eereneial 
specification is contained :in t}tle veg, bex.-. 
pressing existe~cial quant-i.J~ica\[iOno 
~uant~flcaB~on in the V\]? of a genez<Lc 
sentence may be of different kinds ~. both 
with respect to its form and with respect 
to its meaning. As for ib~ fob'm, q~antifica-. 
tion can be either i m p I \[ o i t; e~ as 
in examp\].e (1) or (4)~ or e x p \]. :i. e i t e~ 
an in (2); ore also the adverb usual\]._,< ex-. 
plici~e\]y expressing quantifica\[ion in (25) 
(25) A symphony u s u a I 1 ~ cons:i.~ts 
of four parts~ 
As for its meanJ.ng~ quan.tJ.fioa~ion may be-- 
long to the type 'usua.\]_l~'~ ~s in (\[!.)~ to 
the type ~alwaya~ as in (4)~ and besides, 
~here are great many other semanl;ic types 
of adverbial quantification J.a nai;ura\]. \].a>,.-., 
g~~ages~ ~hese types of quanti£:ioabien being 
expressed expl:J.ciBely by adverbs or adve.c.. 
blals with hhe meaning ~ often' ~ ~'{mme ~irite~ 
~&it~os% ~lways ~ etso \]\[% must be borne -Ln 
mind %ha% qua~itif:ke&-~ion, wb.e~tt implioi%e, 
often rer~laJ.Ils \].J.nguistiea\].\].$ ~'4- <~ ~.nde,. ,.n,zd. o.nd. 
substanti~:J,1\]oy indefinite - in this case a 
p~:~oposition is understood with the type of 
quantific~,~tion that will bring it nearest to 
~ruth, cf,~ such platitudes as Extremes meet 
-o to sound like t~th it must be understood 
Lts 'Extremes usually meet' or even 'It may 
be the cs,~e that extremes meet'. 
Thus~ for "typical" generic propositions, 
such as (1), two properties are substantial: 
l) they a:ee quantified implicitely; 2) their 
quantification belongs to the semantic type 
gusually ~ !.ruth conditions for a typical 
generic proposition can be formulated as 
follows 
(26) A ~eneric proposition with the sub- 
ject s and the predicate P is t1~e if 
and only if for any xC-~ E s (where E s 
is the extension of the general 'term 
s) it is u s u a 1 1 y the case 
that P(s) is true° 
The meaning of usually\[ can be described 
in the sa~e way as the meaning of other 
words is described in lexical semantics. 
Thus, s j!_s usuall~ ~ '~or most x E E s it 
is true that l~(x), and this situation is con- 
sidered to be natural'° This definition 
gives an explanation to the following examp- 
le f~'om Carlson 1978: sentence Books are 
usuall~)aj!erbacks sounds odd, though it is, 
perhaps, true that most books are now paper- 
basks° The fact is, that this situation is 
not as yet considered to be natural. 
7o Adverbial quantificalion 
In a similar way truth conditions for 
other types of adverbial quantification in 
generic p~opositions can be stated. What is 
important is the fact that there are con- 
texts in ~hich adverbial quantification can- 
not be reduced to quantification over the 
extension of the subject term. 
Take ex~np\]e 
(27) Young people usually overestimate 
their resourseso 
~\[ts meaning cannot be adequately repre- 
sented by means of quantification over the 
set of all young people: (27) ~ 'Most young 
people overestimale their resourses'. What 
is ment in (27) is that f o r m o s t 
c a s e s when a young man estimates his 
(or her) resourses he overestimates them . 
So it is clear that quantification over si- 
tuations and not over objects is involved 
here. In the same way we can represent the 
meaning of sentences (8) - (13) with generic 
names of situations from section 2. 
8. Grammatical problems revisited 
Referential oppositions that were intro- 
duced allow us to give explanations to at 
least some of grmnmatical phenomena con- 
nected with generics, ~lich were mentioned 
in section 3. 
Thus,, (28a) and (28b) are not strictly 
synonymous: 
(28) a. A m e r i k a n e c (Sg) delovit 
'An american is effective'. 
b,. A m e r i k a n c y (P1) delovity 
'J~ericans are efficient' 
The difference in meaning may be ascribed to 
the fact that (285) is a usual type of gene- 
ric propositions ~ile (28a) describes our 
mental image of an American (in the sense of 
Wierzbicka 1980). 
Exceptional behavior of generic terms 
with respect to Tense, exemplified by (18), 
canbe explained by the fact that sentence 
(18) does not express a generic proposition: 
NP dinosaurs is here used as a name of 
class. Genuine generic propositions are, in 
fact, o~mitemporal. 
9. Conclusion 
Our investigation can be looked upon as 
a proof of the thesis that for typical gene- 
ric noun phrases a logico-semantic interpre- 
tation can be given which strictly corres- 
ponds to their surface structure (in artic- 
le-lacking languages): generic terms can be 
treated as referentially incomplete phrases, 
with qu~ntification expressed outside the 
phrase itself or not expressed at all. 

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