The main goal of this article is to study the respective role of language typology and context on the noun to verb asymmetry in caregiver speech. The speech of 20 French- and 20 Turkish-speaking mothers addressed to their children in two different situations (book-reading and toy-play) were analysed in terms of noun to verb ratio as well as in…

Experimental studies demonstrate that contrast helps toddlers to extend the meanings of novel adjectives. This study explores whether antonym co-occurrence in spontaneous speech also has an effect on adjective use by the child. The authors studied adjective production in longitudinal speech samples from 16 children (16-36 months) acquiring eight…