The Use of Generic Nouns by Six Year Olds and Its Role on Concept Formation and Category-Based Thinking

Generalization has a fundamental role in concept formation، categorization and induction. In Persian language، there exist four ways to express generic concepts by generic nouns. The current research tries to analyze the comprehension and production of generic nouns by 5-6 year olds and investigate their understanding of morphosyntactic rules، along with the importance of generic nouns in concept formation، category-based thinking and their world knowledge. The data are accumulated by two tests (one on morphology and one on syntax). Eight monolingual Persian-speaking children of 5-6 year olds، who lived in Tehran، were asked to take the tests. Upon analysis، it has been indicated that 5-6 year-olds can use morphosyntactic cues to construe the generic concept in the form of generic noun and distinguish generic from non-generic nouns and categorize concepts.