Longman Dictionary of

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genitive case
generic adj
in grammar, a reference to sentences, such as (in English) Elephants like
peanuts or The elephant likes peanuts or An elephant likes peanuts, that
have a generic meaning, that is, they are meant to apply to all elephants
or elephants in general.
generic reference n
a type of reference which is used to refer to a class of objects or things,
rather than to a specific member of a class. For example in English:
specific reference generic reference
The bird is sick. A tiger is a dangerous animal.
The birds are sick. Tigers are dangerous animals.
There is a bird in the cage. The tiger is a dangerous animal.
genetic epistemology n
a term used to describe the theories of DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY of
the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980). Piaget listed several different
stages which children pass through in mental development. The
first stage is the sensorimotor stage, from birth to about 24 months,
when children understand their environment mainly by acting on it.
Through touch and sight children begin to understand basic relationships
which affect them and objects in their experience. These include
space, location of objects, and the relationships of cause and effect. But
children cannot yet make use of abstract concepts. The next three
stages are a movement towards more abstract processes. During the
pre-operational stage, from around two to seven years, children develop
the symbolic function, which includes such skills as language, mental
imagery, and drawing. Children also begin to develop the mental ability
to use CONCEPTs dealing with number, classification, order, and time,
but use these concepts in a simple way. The concrete operational stage
from about seven to eleven years is the period when children begin to
use mental operations and acquire a number of concepts of conservation.
During the formal operational stage (from around eleven
onwards) children are able to deal with abstract concepts and PROPOSI-
TIONs, and to make hypotheses, inferences, and deductions. Since the
mental processes Piaget studied are important for language development,
linguists and psycholinguists have made use of Piaget’s ideas in
studying how mental development and linguistic development are
related.
genitive case n
the form of a noun or noun phrase which usually shows that the
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