INTRODUCTION

This paper is concerned with the semantic interpretation of generic expressions in conditionals and with their interaction with temporal adverbs and tense, assuming Situation Semantics as a general framework for a model-theoretic semantics of natural language. As a theory of meaning and interpretation which attributes to the context of an utterance an important role in its interpretation, this recently developed semantic theory will provide new and fruitful concepts for analysing the use of generics in natural language and their role in structuring meaning as a relation between expressions and situations in the external world. The issues concerning generics are presented as informally as possible at first, to clarify the underlying intuitions. Reilly's notion of ‘protogeneric’ (this volume) is discussed as a form of contextually restricted generic expression and the general question is addressed of the conditions under which when and whenever are interchangeable with the conditional if–then without distortion of meaning. Conditionals and generics are shown to share an important semantic property: persistence of expressed information, or insensitivity to putative counterexamples.