Constraints Children Place on Word Meanings
نویسنده
چکیده
This paper views lexical acquisition OS a problem of induction: Children must figure out the meaning of a given term, given the large number of possible meanings any term could have. If children had to consider, evaluate, and rule out an unlimited number of hypotheses obout each word in order to figure out its meaning, learning word meanings would be hopeless. Children must, therefore, be limited in the kinds of hypotheses they consider as possible word meanings. This paper considers three possible constraints on word meanings: (1) The whole object assumption which leads children to interpret navel terms as labels for objects -not parts, substances, or other properties of objects: (2) The taxonomic assumption which leads children to consider labels as referring to objects of like kind, rather than to objects that are thematically related: and (3) The mutual exclusivity assumption which leads children to expect each object to hove only one label. Some of the evidence for these constraints is reviewed.
منابع مشابه
Emergent constraints on word-learning: a computational perspective.
In learning the meanings of words, children are guided by a set of constraints that give privilege to some potential meanings over others. These word-learning constraints are sometimes viewed as part of a specifically linguistic endowment. However, several recent computational models suggest concretely how word-learning - constraints included - might emerge from more general aspects of cognitio...
متن کاملSemantic Constraints on Lexical Categories
Children a re prodigious word learners . able to gain substantial information abou t a word's meaning o n the basis of even a single encounter with the word in context . T w o experiments a r e reported which test the hypothesis that the notion "possible word meaning' ' plays a role in constraining the inferences that adult language users make abou t new words encountered in coniext. T h e resu...
متن کاملHunting the Fox of Word Learning: Why ‘‘Constraints’’ Fail to Capture It
It is often asserted that young children’s word learning is guided by constraints or internal biases. Constraints are broadly described as ‘‘any factor that favors some possibilities over others’’ (Medin et al., 1990). Researchers have argued that specialized lexical constraints cause children to make some inferences about word meanings before others. An analysis shows that the concept constrai...
متن کاملPrécis of How children learn the meanings of words.
Normal children learn tens of thousands of words, and do so quickly and efficiently, often in highly impoverished environments. In How Children Learn the Meanings of Words, I argue that word learning is the product of certain cognitive and linguistic abilities that include the ability to acquire concepts, an appreciation of syntactic cues to meaning, and a rich understanding of the mental state...
متن کاملChildren's Inferences in Generalizing Novel Nouns and Adjectives
By the time children begin to rapidly acquire new word meanings they are already able to determine the grammatical category of novel words based on syntactic and morphological cues. Here we test whether children can leverage this knowledge when inferring the meaning of a novel word. Through a novel word learning experiment we determine that children can use this information, drawing different c...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- Cognitive Science
دوره 14 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 1990