Mandarin-speaking Children’s Memory for Generics and Non-generics: The Roles of Morphosyntactic and Contextual Cues

The present study examined whether Mandarin speakers would show similar memory patterns despite the low consistency of morphosyntactic cues in Mandarin when predicting the scope of reference, and, if yes, when and under what conditions they do so. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds (n = 43), 6-year-olds (n = 40), and adults (n = 40) were asked to recall the generic statements or non-generic statements they had just heard with only morphosyntactic cues available. In Experiment 2, 4-year-olds (n = 20) and 6-year-olds (n = 20) were asked to do a similar task but with an additional, contextual cue available.