On the Genericity of Proverbs: A Study of Money Isn't Everything and Every Rose Has a Thorn

Our interest for proverbs is twofold. From a general point of view, it is often said that proverbs, taken as a whole, belong to the genre "discourse." Thus, a certain number of semanticians have looked for the semantic-linguistic characteristics of this discourse genre, & it seems there is consensus around the idea that proverbs have some sort of generic & implicative content. It seems to us, however, that the two forms quoted in the title cannot be interpreted as being both implicative & generic. What is more, each proverb can be considered as a miniature discourse deserving a study of its own. It is just such a detailed study that we have attempted here, based on a few examples. 21 References. Adapted from the source document.