Abstract
AbstractFormalization of the semantics of generics has been considered extremely challenging for their inherent vagueness and context-dependence that hinder a single fixed truth condition. The present study suggests a way to formalize the semantics of generics by constructing flexible acceptance conditions with comparative probabilities. Findings from our in-depth psycholinguistic experiment show that two comparative probabilities—cue validity and prevalence—indeed construct the flexible acceptance conditions for generics in a systematic manner that can be applied to a diverse types of generics: Acceptability of IS_A relational generics is mostly determined by prevalence without interaction with cue validity; feature-describing generics are endorsed acceptable with high cue validity, albeit mediated by prevalence; and acceptability of feature-describing generics with low cue validity is mostly determined by prevalence irrespective of cue validity. Such systematic patterns indicate a great potential for the formalization of the semantics of generics.
Funder
Institute for Information and Communications Technology Promotion
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Psychology,Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Reference38 articles.
1. Barwise, J., & Cooper, R. (1981). Generalized quantifiers and natural language. In: Philosophy, language, and artificial intelligence (pp. 241–301). Springer.
2. Barwise, J., & Perry, J. (1981). Situations and attitudes. The Journal of Philosophy, 78(11), 668–691.
3. Beach, L. R. (1964). Cue probabilism and inference behavior. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 78(5–6), 1.
4. Bergen, B. (2015). Embodiment. In E. Dabrowska & D. Divjak (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 10–30). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
5. Cavedon, L., & Glasbey, S. (1994). Outline of an information-flow model of generics. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 42(3/4), 2–6.