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Document Details : Title: Genericity in the Qur'ān Author(s): DROR, Yehudit Journal: Journal Asiatique Volume: 309 Issue: 1 Date: 2021 Pages: 33-46 DOI: 10.2143/JA.309.1.3289426 Abstract : Genericity is commonly associated with two properties. The first is the reference to a kind or a genus, where the noun phrase does not designate a specific exemplar. The second is the description of a rule and not the expression of a specific episode or isolated fact or event. In this article I examine some of the syntactic/semantic features attributed to generic noun phrases such as definiteness vs. indefiniteness and singularity vs. plurality. I argue that the differentiation between the so-called D-generics (i.e., definite noun phrases referring to kind) and I-generics (i.e., indefinite noun phrases reporting a generalization) is not applicable to Qur᾿ānic cases since this differentiation depends on the type of predicate, whereas Qur᾿ānic generic noun phrases do not always precede or be followed by a verbal or nominal predicate. Instead I suggest distinguishing between concrete generic noun phrases which refer to a class or kind/species and the objects denoted by this noun, and abstract generic noun phrases which only refer to a concept and thus have multiple denotations. |
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