Preschool children use linguistic form class and pragmatic cues to interpret generics

Generic noun phrases (e.g., "Bats live in caves") are important for expressing knowledge about abstract kinds. Past work has found that parents frequently use generic noun phrases in their speech to young children. However, little is known regarding how children understand these expressions, nor which cues signal generic meaning. The present set of 5 studies examined the influence of linguistic form class (e.g., "What color are dogs?" [generic] versus "What color are the dogs?" [nongeneric]) and of pragmatic context (e.g., "What color are they?" in the presence of either a single exemplar [generic] or multiple exemplars [nongeneric]). Participants were 2-year-olds (N = 42), 3-year-olds (N = 40), 4-year-olds (N = 40), and adults (N = 51). The data indicate that by 2 years of age, children use linguistic form class, and by 3 years of age, children use pragmatic context. These findings demonstrate that young children have begun to understand the distinction between generic and nongeneric noun phrases from a very young age, and that identification of generics is signaled not by formal or pragmatic cues alone, but by a combination of information from both language form and pragmatic context. It is suggested that children make use of multiple linguistic and conceptual cues to acquire and interpret generics.