One of the fundamental questions in the field of language acquisition is a learnability problem, which considers how learners acquire certain aspects of language which are not directly provided in the input or whose referents are not readily observable. This dissertation investigates Japanese children's acquisition of various linguistic phenomena,…

This longitudinal study involving 101 Dutch four- and five-year-olds charts indirect request (IR) and mental state term (MST) understanding and investigates the role that Theory of Mind (ToM) and general linguistic ability (vocabulary, syntax, and spatial language) play in this development. The results showed basic understanding of IR and MST in…

Stoel-Gammon (this issue) states that "from birth to age 2 ; 6, the developing phonological system affects lexical acquisition to a greater degree than lexical factors affect phonological development" (this issue). This conclusion is based on a wealth of data; however, the available data are somewhat limited in scope, focusing on rather holistic…

Examined children's ability to draw on functional information to predict the similarity of function across exemplars and to extend new words from an initial exemplar to one of two others. The cognitive difficulties associated with judgments concerning material function are discussed in relation to additional factors that could lead children under…

This study assessed the relation between mother mental state language and child desire language and emotion understanding in 15--24-month-olds. At both times point, mothers described pictures to their infants and mother talk was coded for mental and nonmental state language. Children were administered 2 emotion understanding tasks and their mental…

Reviews evidence supporting the Contrastive Hypothesis, revealing little support for the hypothesis that young children automatically assume that every two words in their lexicons contrast. Theoretical problems with the positions that children assign words to semantic fields as they are acquiring them and that innovations are used to fill lexical…

Ostensive definitions of words are ambiguities as to their referent. In a study of infant-mother dyads engaged in looking at picture books, 95 percent of ostensive definitions referred to the whole object depicted rather than parts, attributes, or actions. When parts were named, ambiguity was avoided by naming the part and the whole. (PJM)

This article deals with an important question in the area of developmental psycholinguistics. It studies the conditions for a presyntactcic utterance to become a "canonical sentence" or "canonical utterance" at the stage of the two-word combinations. Two main points are highlighted: (1) how a prelinguistic utterance between 9-12 months of age can…

Investigates the processes by which children develop basic morphological categories of plants and learn to relate such categories to one another by inclusion and contrast. Suggests that the parallel thought sequences observed in random subjects engaged in this task may reflect universals of perception and cognition. (PMJ)

Examination of object word learning and use in beginning (vocabulary of less than 50 words) and advanced (vocabulary of more than 50 words) infant speakers indicated that both groups formed concepts, learned, and generalized words for the to-be-learned objects. Advanced speakers learned more words and concepts and engaged in broader generalization…

Addresses two questions: (1) When do children who are bilingual from birth become aware that they speak two languages? and (2) What are the factors that lead to this awareness? The subjects in the study described here were Italian/German bilingual children living in the Italian region of Alto Adige. (CFM)

Reviews current research on children's concepts and categories that reflects a growing consensus that nonperceptual knowledge is central to concepts and determines category membership, whereas perceptual knowledge is peripheral in concepts and only a rough guide to category membership. Argues that there is no compelling basis in theory or in data…

Comments on the article by Jones and Smith in this issue. Responds to the theses that perceptual information is as much at the core of concepts as is nonperceptual information and that concepts are not represented as such but are computed on-line when needed. Presents a view of the relationship between perception and conceptual knowledge…

Comments on the article by Jones and Smith in this issue. Describes a program of research that demonstrates the important influence of perception on the structure of concepts. Proposes that both perceptual and nonperceptual information are important to conceptual structure throughout the continuum of knowledge acquisition and that perception is a…

Comments on the article by Jones and Smith in this issue. Outlines different perspectives from which the issue of conceptual development is approached, elaborating on the functions concepts serve and variations in those functions. Notes points of agreement with the perceptual knowledge view and offers comments on the research supporting the…