This is intended as a generic statement:
*A madrigal is popular.
This means that being popular is a requirement for being a madrigal.
...of course this conclusion is wrong, so I've marked the example with a star.
*A tiger is in danger of becoming extinct.
The tiger is in danger of becoming extinct.
Tigers are in danger of becoming extinct.
The Indefinite Generic a tiger is ungrammatical with the predicate become extinct, because that extinction can only happen to a species, and it means that every member is dead. In contrast, we we can use the Definite Generic because the predicate is characteristic of the species. We can also use a Plural Generic because we're speaking of tigers in aggregate.
I read those examples and explanations in a grammar book (or, more likely, online). Would anyone please explain those in a more simple way, so that I could get it? I cannot tell what the explanations mean very well.
Or could you possibly explain that with another example that is easier to understand?
Answer
I have considered that you have gone through this document here, the original source of this question and the other answer here, but then it's still perplexing.
So now...
I shall try to address the Or could you possibly explain that with another example that is easier to understand? part here:
Articles are difficult to understand and depending on the context their usage changes. I have recently asked a question on this.
Now, please note that I'm creating the context here.
The scene is — you are standing in the Sasan Gir Forest (home to the Asiatic Lions) and I'm with you providing some information about the area and the animals found in. I'll use all those three sentence structures in concern.
This means there is a (one) lion somewhere who is friendly.
What that explanation says -- "the extinction happens to every member of that species." Correct! Compare it with this example. Any one tiger cannot be in danger to become extinct. And yes, species is a group noun and can take indefinite article. OALD example says -"a rare species of beetle."
Now,
This in this context means I'm talking about the specific lions, precisely I'm talking about the Asiatic Lions who are friendly and not the African lions.
What that explanation says --"the predicate is the characteristics of the species." True again! However, in my example, I'm not talking about extinction but friendliness and hence, it could be understood that I refer to the character of friendliness of particular lions. When we are talking about extinction, we should expect this to be true of any tiger because when the species of some animal gets extincted, you don't find that animal anymore.
And finally,
This takes the entire species of this animal. It talks about the characteristic of an animal. As we say dogs are loyal, which means take any dog, it's loyal because it's it character.
What that explanation says -- "we are talking about the tigers in aggregate." Correct! This matches with the example given above #3. Without any article, it means you are talking about the entire mass, species as a whole. Check - dogs are loyal to humans.
All in all, the plural generic seems to be easily understandable for English learners like me.
This site confirms it! :)
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