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Generici
Rosola, Martina
Cella, Federico
2025
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Abstract
Generics express general claims, such as “Lions roar”, and are commonly used to express stereotypes, such as “Women are emotional”. These constructions sparked an interdisciplinary debate, ranging from philosophy of language to linguistics and psychology. We introduce generics by discussing the tests for distinguishing them, their linguistic properties, and the main theories on their semantics. We then offer an overview of their cognitive implications: the data on acquisition, the hypothesis that they are automatic generalizations, their relation to essentialism, and the inferential asymmetry characterizing their interpretation. We conclude with the debate concerning the role of generics in fostering discrimination.
I generici esprimono affermazioni generali come “I leoni ruggiscono”, e vengono comunemente usati per esprimere stereotipi, come “Le donne sono emotive”. Queste costruzioni sono oggetto di un dibattito interdisciplinare che spazia dalla filosofia del linguaggio alla linguistica e alla psicologia. Introduciamo il tema discutendo i test che permettono di distinguere i generici, le loro proprietà linguistiche e le principali teorie sulla loro semantica. Offriamo poi una panoramica delle loro implicazioni cognitive: i dati sull’acquisizione, l’ipotesi che siano generalizzazioni automatiche, la relazione con l’essenzialismo e l’asimmetria inferenziale che ne caratterizza l’interpretazione. Concludiamo con il dibattito sul ruolo dei generici nella discriminazione
Generics express general claims, such as “Lions roar”, and are commonly used to express stereotypes, such as “Women are emotional”. These constructions sparked an interdisciplinary debate, ranging from philosophy of language to linguistics and psychology. We introduce generics by discussing the tests for distinguishing them, their linguistic properties, and the main theories on their semantics. We then offer an overview of their cognitive implications: the data on acquisition, the hypothesis that they are automatic generalizations, their relation to essentialism, and the inferential asymmetry characterizing their interpretation. We conclude with the debate concerning the role of generics in fostering discrimination.
Journal
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Martina Rosola, Federico Cella, "Generici", in "APhEx 31", 2025, pp. 53-97
Languages
it
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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