The semantics of generic quantification in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This paper investigates the semantics of kind-referring expressions and of generic quantification in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). It may thus be taken as a contribution to the development of a more accurate understanding of genericity as a crosslinguistic phenomenon. In BP genericity may be expressed by both definite singular (1) and definite plural (2) nominals, and also by indefinite nominals such as the indefinite generic (3), the bare numberless (4) and the bare plural (5). The main goal of the paper is to address the differences in the interpretations of these five types of generic expressions in BP in light of the distinction between generically quantified sentences and kind-referring expressions (cf. Krifka et al.1995).