Abhisek Sarkar

Generic sentences (eg. Birds fly or Cows have four legs) have always posed a challenge to the classical calculi of logical semantics as they do violate truth conditions in the sense that they allow exceptions. A generic cannot be rendered flawed in spite of the fact that there are birds like emu and ostrich who do not fly and there are cows who do not have all the four legs. Hence it is interesting to enquire as in how the generics are computed in human mind. Linguists of various hues have enquired into the semantics of generics. This paper presents a critique of the major theoretical proposals put forth by linguists on the nature of these generics. This article refrains from providing a conclusive answer to the question but provides cues about the salient issues concerning the theorization of the semantics of generic sentences.

Generic sentences (eg. Birds fly or Cows have four legs) have always posed a
challenge to the classical calculi of logical semantics as they do violate truth
conditions in the sense that they allow exceptions. A generic cannot be
rendered flawed in spite of the fact that there are birds like emu and ostrich who
do not fly and there are cows who do not have all the four legs. Hence it is
interesting to enquire as in how the generics are computed in human mind.
Linguists of various hues have enquired into the semantics of generics. This
paper presents a critique of the major theoretical proposals put forth by linguists
on the nature of these generics. This article refrains from providing a
conclusive answer to the question but provides cues about the salient issues
concerning the theorization of the semantics of generic sentences.

This paper is concerned with the use of discourse analysis and observation to elicit expert knowledge. In particular, we describe the use of these techniques to acquire knowledge about expert problem solving in an information provision environment. Our method of analysis has been to make audio-recordings of real-life information interactions between users (the clients) and human intermediaries (the experts) in document retrieval situations. These tapes have then been transcribed and analysed utterance-by-utterance in the following ways: assigning utterances to one of the prespecified functional categories; identifying the specific purposes of each utterance; determining the knowledge required to perform each utterance; grouping utterances into functional and focus-based sequences. The long-term goal of the project is to develop an intelligent document retrieval system based on a distributed expert, blackboard architecture.

Abstract 1. In this exciting new text Ian Parker provides one of the clearest and most systematic introductions to discourse research and essential theoretical debates in the area. It is one of the few texts to defend a realist position, discuss accounts of postmodernity and ...

© Lilie Chouliaraki and Norman Fairclough, 1999 Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square, Edinburgh Reprinted 2001, 2002, 2004,2005 Typeset in Garamond by Norman Tilley Graphics, Northampton, and printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, ...