Generics and Context: Do Counterexamples Dissuade Acceptance of True Generic Statements?

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dc.abstract.enThis study investigates whether the salience of counterexamples in discourse affects the acceptance of true generic statements. Building on previous theoretical and experimental work on generics, we examine whether generics are sensitive to contextual cues that highlight exceptions. Polish participants completed a truth-value judgment task featuring majority and minority characteristic generics presented in two types of encyclopaedic contexts: neutral and exception-driven. The results show that plural generics were highly stable across contexts, while singular generics exhibited a small but statistically significant decrease in acceptance in exception-driven conditions. Predicate type also influenced judgments: minority generics were rated as less acceptable than majority ones. These findings support the view that generics display high tolerance of exceptions, with limited context effects attributable to heuristic misjudgment or anaphoric reinterpretation rather than semantic variability. The results further suggest that singular generics may invite more restrictive interpretations due to their morphosyntactic form.
dc.affiliationWydział Nauk Humanistycznych
dc.affiliationWydział Nauk Humanistycznych w Warszawie
dc.contributor.authorWajda, Edyta
dc.contributor.authorKarczewski, Daniel
dc.date.access2025-12-31
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-29T07:44:40Z
dc.date.available2026-06-29T07:44:40Z
dc.date.created2026-12-31
dc.date.issued2025-12-31
dc.description.abstract<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This study investigates whether the salience of counterexamples in discourse affects the acceptance of true generic statements. Building on previous theoretical and experimental work on generics, we examine whether generics are sensitive to contextual cues that highlight exceptions. Polish participants completed a truth-value judgment task featuring majority and minority characteristic generics presented in two types of encyclopaedic contexts: neutral and exception-driven. The results show that plural generics were highly stable across contexts, while singular generics exhibited a small but statistically significant decrease in acceptance in exception-driven conditions. Predicate type also influenced judgments: minority generics were rated as less acceptable than majority ones. These findings support the view that generics display high tolerance of exceptions, with limited context effects attributable to heuristic misjudgment or anaphoric reinterpretation rather than semantic variability. The results further suggest that singular generics may invite more restrictive interpretations due to their morphosyntactic form.</jats:p>
dc.description.accesstimeat_publication
dc.description.issue1
dc.description.physical431-447
dc.description.sdgNoSDGsAreRelevantForThisPublication
dc.description.versionfinal_published
dc.description.volume70
dc.identifier.doi10.2478/slgr-2025-0022
dc.identifier.issn0860-150X
dc.identifier.issn2199-6059
dc.identifier.urihttps://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/2443
dc.identifier.weblinkhttps://reference-global.com/download/article/10.2478/slgr-2025-0022.pdf
dc.languageen
dc.pbn.affiliationjęzykoznawstwo
dc.rightsCC-BY
dc.rights.questionYes_rights
dc.share.articleOPEN_JOURNAL
dc.subject.engenerics
dc.subject.encontext sensitivity
dc.subject.enexception salience
dc.subject.enheuristic judgment
dc.subject.enplural vs. singular generics
dc.subject.enPolish
dc.swps.sciencecloudsend
dc.titleGenerics and Context: Do Counterexamples Dissuade Acceptance of True Generic Statements?
dc.title.journalStudies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typeArticle