Genericity and the denotation of common nouns in Brazilian Portuguese

A genericidade e a denotação dos nomes comuns em Português

Abstract

This paper investigates what the semantics of generic sentences in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) says about the denotation of Noun Phrases in that language. More specifically, it addresses the syntactic and semantic differences among the indefinite nominals that get a generic interpretation in BP. The paper may also be taken to test well-known hypotheses about the functioning of genericity in natural languages.

Semantics; Syntax; Genericity; Common nouns