3: Word Learning

Question 1

What is a mapping problem?

Answer 1

Children cannot place the feature people are describing when they reference something (eg if someone is pointing at a dog it could mean a load of different things)

Question 2

at 2 years, what is the comprehension/production ratio of words?

Answer 2

for every 1 word a child can produce, they can comprehend 2-3

Question 3

which comprehension comes first, verbs or nouns?

Answer 3

noun (6 months), then verbs (10 months)

Question 4

when do children roughly have their first word?

Answer 4

12 months, they know about 500 by 24 months

Question 5

is noun-bias universal

Answer 5

Cross-linguistically, predominance of nouns in early vocabularies (e.g., 40% of English-speaking children’s first 50 words – Nelson, 1973)

Question 6

What are the other type of words most commonly learnt early?

Answer 6

socially mediated words - words where it is easiest to read someone’s intentions (eg hello, bye)

Question 7

what is the natural partitions hypothesis?

Answer 7

Early nouns denote concrete objects easily individuated from surroundings. Actions, states etc. tend to apply TO entities labelled by nouns, less clearly defined in space & time.

Question 8

define: under-extension?

Answer 8

Words used in specific contexts where adults would use in a wide range of contexts, eg bye only when putting the telephone receiver down

Question 9

define: over-extension

Answer 9

using words beyond their true meaning (eg calling a ball apple)

Question 10

define: object constraint

Answer 10

Object constraint - Words refer to objects, not actions or properties

Question 11

define: whole-object constraint

Answer 11

Words refer to whole objects rather than their parts.

Question 12

define: principle of contrast

Answer 12

No two words have exactly the same meaning

Question 13

define: mutual exclusivity (word constraints)

Answer 13

No object has more than one name

Question 14

four

What are some of the main criticisms with innate constraints theory on word learning?

Answer 14

Do constraints explain word learning or just describe it?
How does this theory work for non-noun words?
Are constraints innate or learned via experience?
Little research on infants.

Question 15

What is the syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis?

Answer 15

Observing how a word is used in the context of language and grammar to guess what kind of word and thus what it’s meaning is

Question 16

4 Criticisms

What are the main criticisms of syntactic bootstrapping?

Answer 16

• Not clear exactly what parts of sentences children are listening to.
• The chicken and the egg… Some knowledge of words and word categories is needed to understand their structure.
• Do studies reveal something about long term word meaning, or immediate problem solving ?
• Structural information can’t solve all the problems
  
  • The man’s tamming over the bridge
  • Tamming = walking or strolling or going

Question 17

What is the social-pragmatic approach to word-learning?

Answer 17

Children learn words and word meaning from pragmatic cues in the environment which remove ambiguities around word meaning.

Question 18

constraints

What are the 2 constraints in the social-pragmatic approach?

Answer 18

Social Structure - Routines, games, patterned social interactions
Child’s social-cognitive skills - joint attention, intention reading

Question 19

two

What are the main criticisms of the social-pragmatic approach to word learning?

Answer 19

What kinds of inferential skills does the child bring to the task of language acquisition?
Can this process of learning account for the acquisition of complex syntax?