Eighteen-month-olds' spatial categorization was tested when hearing a novel spatial word. Infants formed an abstract categorical representation of support (i.e., placing 1 object on another) when hearing a novel spatial particle during habituation but not when viewing the events in silence. Infants with a productive spatial vocabulary did not…

Three experiments examined role of lexical-form class in preschoolers' establishment of word-to-object mappings in referentially ambiguous situations. Results indicated that preschoolers were most likely to reject two words for the same object if both were proper names, and were less likely to reject if both were adjectives or if one was proper…