Lexical Development

Question 1

Arbitrariness

Answer 1

Sound of a word has no systematic relationship to the meaning of a word
>exception is onomatopoeia (“meow”)

Question 2

Context-bound words

Answer 2

-Used in only some contexts

>E.g. using word “car” ONLY for cars outside the window.

Question 3

Prelexical words

Answer 3

Not truly referential

Question 4

Nominals

Answer 4

Names for objects, nouns.

Question 5

Decontextualization

Answer 5

Words used more flexibly and referentially.

Question 6

Natural partitions hypothesis

Answer 6

Difference between nouns and verbs based on pre-existing perceptual-conceptual distinction between Concrete Concepts (persons, things) and Predicative Concepts (activity, change-of-state, casual relations

Question 7

Relational relativity hypothesis

Answer 7

• Meanings of nouns are more similar than the meanings of verbs across languages
• Language-specific differences may make verbs harder to learn.

Question 8

Underextensions

Answer 8

Children use a word in fewer contexts than should

> using “dog” to refer only to poodles.

Question 9

Overextensions

Answer 9

Children use a word in more contexts than they should/

> Using “dog” to refer to all four-legged mammals.

Question 10

Holistic

Answer 10

everything as a unit rather than a sum of its individual parts.

Question 11

Referential style

Answer 11

• More social expressions

- Fewer referential nouns

Question 12

Expressive syle

Answer 12

• More social expressions

- Fewer referential nouns

Question 13

Segmentation

Answer 13

[clear] beginnings and endings

Question 14

Fast mapping

Answer 14

Initial mapping on the basis of only a few exposures

> Children show a familiar and an unfamiliar object. “Can I have the zib”

Question 15

Whole-object assumption

Answer 15

When confronted with a new word for an object children assume word describes whole object, not a feature or a sub-part.

Question 16

Mutual Exclusivity Assumption

Answer 16

Not all words refer to whole objects.

Children assume that different words refer to different things

Question 17

Pragmatic principles

Answer 17

Child infers intent of speaker

Question 18

Principle of conventionality

Answer 18

Speakers of a common language use same words to express meaning

> e.g., when referring to someplace to sit at the dining table, we use the word “chair”

Question 19

Principle of contrast

Answer 19

Implication of principle of conventionality, so they use a different form to imply that the speaker is referring to DIFFERENT MEANING “dog” vs “pet”

Question 20

Syntactic bootstrapping

Answer 20

Using syntactic cues to aid learning words

Question 21

Extension

Answer 21

Extending word meanings to new examples.

> “This is a cup – what else is a cup?”

Question 22

Taxonomic assumption

Answer 22

Words refer to things of same kind.

> If learn word for a given “dog,” assume it applies to all things of the same kind, i.e., all “dogs”