Twenty-one-month-old infants' interpretations of novel adjectives: Evidence for a linkage between adjectives and object properties in early word learning.

摘要

Current research proposes that the child approaches the language learning task with a set of biases which constrain the universe of possible meanings for a given word. These guiding principles are hypothesized to provide a link between the conceptual and linguistic domains. For preschoolers, these linkages are specific. Different types of words indicate different types of information. Nouns highlight categories of objects, while adjectives focus attention on properties of objects. The investigation of the nature of the linkages between words and concepts during infancy contributes to our understanding of how such linkages assist in early word learning. Recent research reveals that a linkage between words and categories of objects emerges early in the process of lexical acquisition. Both nouns and adjectives highlight categories of objects for 12-month-olds. Do words focus infants' attention on concepts other than kind? This thesis examined the influence of adjectives on 21-month-olds' appreciation of properties of objects. Studies One and Two investigated whether 21-month-olds extend adjectives to properties of objects when the objects were from the same kind. Study Three looked at whether 21-month-olds extend adjectives to properties of objects when the objects were from different kinds. Study Four more closely examined the role of kind in infants' attention to properties of objects. This study explored whether infants apply their understanding of an adjective introduced in the presence of objects from the same kind to inform their interpretation of the adjective when presented with objects from disparate kinds. The results reveal that adjectives highlight properties of objects for 21-month-olds. In addition, infants at this age assign different types of meaning to nouns and adjectives. However, the influence of adjectives is restricted to comparisons within the same object kind. This implies that infants' initial understanding of adjectives focuses on their role in specifying distinctions within a kind. An appreciation of linkages between different types of form classes and different types of concepts is available to infants during early lexical development. These findings are reviewed in the light of existing research on young children's linguistic and conceptual development.