Greg Carlson
contemporaryAnalytic Philosophy of Language / Formal Semanticsb. 1948
Greg Carlson is an American linguist and philosopher of language, best known for his foundational work on the semantics of generic and kind-referring expressions. His 1977 dissertation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst established the now-standard treatment of bare plurals as names of kinds, profoundly shaping formal semantics.
Notable Achievements
1
Developed the kind-referring analysis of bare plurals in English
2
Co-edited The Generic Book (1995), the standard reference on genericity
3
Advanced the semantics of habitual and generic sentences
4
Long-standing professor of linguistics at the University of Rochester