Generics in Mainland Scandinavian languages

The paper examines nominal expressions of genericity as found in generic texts (ornithological atlases) in Mainland Scandinavian languages. The material is subdivided into first mentions and subsequent mentions and these are reported separately. Subsequent mentions can be said to be subject to conflicting principles - on the one hand they are generic, on the other anaphoric. The results show that all three languages prefer singular definite NPs to express first mention genericity, however, significant differences are found in subsequent mentions.