Linguistic and Conceptual Influences on Adjective Acquisition in 24- and 36-Month-Olds.
- 1 January 2005
- journal article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Developmental Psychology
- Vol. 41 (1) , 17-29
Abstract
Two hundred forty English-speaking toddlers (24- and 36-month-olds) heard novel adjectives applied to familiar objects (Experiment 1) and novel objects (Experiment 2). Children were successful in mapping adjectives to target properties only when information provided by the noun, in conjunction with participants' knowledge of the objects, provided coherent category information: when basic-level nouns or superordinate-level nouns were used with familiar objects, when novel basic-level nouns were used with novel objects, and--for 36-month-olds--when the nouns were underspecified with respect to category (thing or one) but participants could nonetheless infer a category from pragmatic and conceptual knowledge. These results provide evidence concerning how nouns influence adjective learning, and they support the notion that toddlers consider pragmatic factors when learning new words.Keywords
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Adjectives really do modify nouns: the incremental and restricted nature of early adjective acquisitionCognition, 2002
- Children's avoidance of lexical overlap: A pragmatic account.Developmental Psychology, 2001
- Object Shape, Object Function, and Object NameJournal of Memory and Language, 1998
- The Role of Discourse Novelty in Early Word LearningChild Development, 1996
- Young children extend novel words at the basic level: Evidence for the principle of categorical scope.Developmental Psychology, 1995
- When it is better to receive than to give: Syntactic and conceptual constraints on vocabulary growthLingua, 1994
- Assumptions about Word Meaning: Individuation and Basic-Level KindsChild Development, 1993
- Syntactic context and the shape bias in children's and adults' lexical learningJournal of Memory and Language, 1992
- Children use syntax to learn verb meaningsJournal of Child Language, 1990
- Constraints children place on word meaningsCognitive Science, 1990