Expressions of genericity in Mainland Scandinavian languages

Abstract The aim of this paper is to show to what extent the Mainland Scandinavian languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish differ with respect to the forms used as generic NPs, a topic which so far has not attracted much attention. Based on a survey conducted among native speakers of each language we present the distribution of NP types among generic NPs. The results indicate that the Danish respondents are most consistent in using the definite article generically, while the Norwegian respondents show most variability with respect to which types of NPs are used generically, with Swedish taking... Mehr ...