title: A developmental analysis of generic nouns in Southern Peruvian Quechua.
abstract: Generic noun phrases (e.g., "Cats like to drink milk") are a primary means by which adults express generalizations to children, yet they pose a challenging induction puzzle for learners. Although prior research has established that English speakers understand and produce generic noun phrases by preschool age, little is known regarding the cross-cultural generality of generic acquisition. Southern Peruvian Quechua provides a valuable comparison because, unlike English, it is a highly inflected language in which generics are marked by the absence rather than the presence of any linguistic markers. Moreover, Quechua is spoken in a cultural context that differs markedly from the highly educated, middle-class contexts within which earlier research on generics was conducted. We presented participants from 5 age groups (3-6, 7-9, 10-12, 14-35, and 36-90 years of age) with two tasks that examined the ability to distinguish generic from non-generic utterances. In Study 1, even the youngest children understood generics as applying broadly to a category (like "all") and distinct from indefinite reference ("some"). However, there was a developmental lag before children understood that generics, unlike "all", can include exceptions. Study 2 revealed that generic interpretations are more frequent for utterances that (a) lack specifying markers and (b) are animate. Altogether, generic interpretations are found among the youngest participants, and may be a default mode of quantification. These data demonstrate the cross-cultural importance of generic information in linguistic expression.
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mannheim
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Gelman
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Escalante
authors.forename: Margarita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huayhua
authors.forename: Rosalía
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Puma