A FEATURE-BASED ACCOUNT OF GENERICITY AND KIND REFERENCE

Abstract

Genericity encompasses two distinct phenomena. The first one is reference to a kind, whereby a predicate describes a property directly of a kind as in Dinosaurs are extinct. The second one is a characterizing or a generic sentence that expresses generalizations as in Cats meow. A feature of generic sentences is that they tolerate exceptions. We accept sentences such as Mosquitos carry the West Nile virus to be true although the predicated property characterizes less than 1 percent of the generic noun phrase. In this article, I propose a feature-based account of genericity and kind reference linked to a formal semantics that articulates the features responsible for genericity and kind reference and where they are encoded. I argue that genericity and kind reference is due to the [−domain restriction] feature encoded on the (D)eterminer, the [+set] feature on the head of the Set Phrase, and the [+/−exception tolerance] feature encoded on a predicate. This feature-based account explains why a sentence like Cats meow is tolerant of exceptions while Dinosaurs are extinct is not. My account is in line with the Borer-Chomsky Conjecture (Baker 2008), according to which crosslinguistic parametric variation is due to differences in the features of functional heads.