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^57
Technical Report No.
257
WHY NOUNS ARE LEARNED BEFORE VERBS:
LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY
VERSUS
NATURAL PARTITIONING
Dedre Gentner
Bolt Beranek and Newman
Inc.
July 1982
Center for the Study of Reading
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Educatic
Washington. D.C. 202(
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF READING
Technical Report No.
257
WHY NOUNS ARE LEARNED BEFORE VERBS:
LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY
VERSUS
NATURAL PARTITIONING
Dedre Gentner
Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.
July 1982
University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
51 Gerty Drive
Champaign, Illinois 61820
BBN Report No.
4854
Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.
50 Moulton Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
02238
This research was conducted under a contract from the National Institute
of Education under Contract No. HEW-NIE-C-400-76-0116. To appear in
S. Kuczaj (Ed.), Language development: Language cognition and culture.
EDITORIAL BOARD
William Nagy and Stephen Wilhite
Co-Editors
Harry Blanchard
Anne Hay
Charlotte Blomeyer
Asghar Iran-Nejad
Nancy Bryant
Jill LaZansky
Larry Colker
Terry Turner
Avon Crismore
Janet Williams
Meg Gallagher
Paul Wilson
Michael Nivens, Editorial Assistant
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
2
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs:
Linguistic Relativity Versus Natural Partitioning
Abstract
It
has
been
claimed that children learn nouns before verbs and
It
other predicate
terms.
This
is
held
to
from
result
is
often
reported
that
children's
first
words
are
deep
primarily nouns (Gentner, 1978a; Macnamara, 1972; Nelson,
1973).
conceptual differences between noun referents and verb referents.
This
In
this
paper
I
has been interpreted as evidence that the concepts referred
want to first establish the generality of the
to by nouns are particularly
finding that nouns are acquired before verbs within
English
different
in
other
languages;
then,
use
accessible
to
infants:
They
are
and
from,
and
conceptually more basic than, the concepts
crosslinguistic comparisons to
referred to by verbs or prepositions.
consider whether non-conceptual factors
could
account
for
This is a position with
a
the
long
history.
As far back as Aristotle, we find arguments that
acquisition order; and finally, to speculate on the issue of what
the kinds of things denoted by nouns are different from, and more
conceptual
correlates
might exist and how they might enter into
theories of word meaning and language acquisition.
fundamental ontologically than,
verbs (Book Zeta, Chapter 1,
the kinds of
things
denoted
by
quoted in Alston, 1964):
And so one might even raise the question whether the
words "to walk,"
each
of
these
"to be healthy," "to sit," imply that
things
is
existent, and similarly in
other cases of this sort; for none of
self-subsistent
or
capable
substance, but rather,
walks
if
of
them
being
anything,
it
is
either
separated from
is
that
which
or sits or is healthy that is an existent thing.
Now these are seen to be more
something
definite
which
real
underlies
substance or individual) which is
predicate;
for
we
never
because
use
them
implied
the
word
there
is
(i.e., the
in
such
"good"
a
or
"sitting" without implying this [p.2].
This position, which I
will
call
the
Natural
Partitions
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
3
hypothesis,
holds
that:
(1) the linguistic distinction between
nouns and predicate terms, such as
based
on
between
a
preexisting
concrete
predicative
verbs
perceptual
concepts
concepts
4
of
such
as
activity,
or
and
prepositions,
conceptual distinction
persons
or
things
change-of-state,
relations; and (2) that the category corresponding to
at
its
core,
conceptually
simpler
or
more
corresponding to verbs and other predicates.
supported
by
the
universality
language (Hockett,
language
wholly
1960,
fails
1
or causal
nouns
As
Sapir
(1944)
language,
it
distinction
also
basic
in
emerges early as
an
important
in
distinction
and
"No
organize
nature
called Linguistic
cause
us
to
an aspect of grammar --
is
studied by grammarians.
the
We
agreement to do so, not because nature
to
an
our
mother
English
terms,
tongue,
that
like
way
'sky,
for
hill,
persuade us to regard some elusive aspect
1978),
and
pidgins
and
up
parties
see...
endless
sign
cut
spread and flow of events as we do,
itself is segmented in exactly
119]."
variety
table or chair.
as
a
distinct
of
1956,
are
all
to
swamp,'
nature's
thing, almost like a
Thus, English and similar tongues lead
us to think of the universe as a collection
objects
we
and
events
of
rather
corresponding to words.
p.240)
position that nouns and verbs have different conceptual
However, it is quite
possible
by
our
communicative
language.
distinction,
Simply
because
albeit
an
language
important
guarantee that correlates exist in the perceptual
counterview,
stated
Linguistic Relativity:
eloquently
that it
is
by
Whorf
language
a
is
no
world.
(1956),
that
makes
one,
is
sets
Does language follow some natural perceptual segmentation of
that
seeming conceptual difference is really an illusion foisted
us
hypothesis,
conceptual
through
distinct
bases is an attractive one.
on
underlying
largely because,
(Whorf,
this
of
one as yet little
creoles (Slobin, 1975).
The
stronger
no
that these linguistic distinctions
Segmentation
Not one of
a manual-visual language (Supalla & Newport,
is
with
and that each language is
read into the world corresponding perceptual distinctions:
elusive
American
differently,
Whorf's
Determinism,
distinguish noun and verb, though in
is
do
constraints.
is
says,
imperatively required for the life of language [p.
noun/verb
The
so
to
parts of speech,
is,
This intuition
It is different with the other parts of speech.
them is
free
basic than those
particular cases the nature of the distinction may be an
one.
and
between
of the noun/verb distinction in
1968).
to
is
distinctions
This
called
up
the
the world or does our segmentation of the world follow
Because
both
views
would
predict agreement between linguistic
categories
and
intuitions
to decide between them.
conceptual
language?
categories,
we
However,
cannot
it
use
adult
is possible that
learning patterns among children experiencing a language for
the
first
the
time
may
more
directly
perceptual world on language.
reveal
the
influence
of
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
information
about
somehow
else
being
solved; it
only
appropriate
just
those
these
nouns;
as
language
be
words
early
classes,
concept
with
the
concepts
stable
are
first
words
should
be
show
a
distribution
random
across form
the Natural Partitions hypothesis as stated here will be
untenable.
Relativity:
perceptual
At a minimum,
and
distinctions;
stronger
Determinism,
might
themselves
such a pattern would suggest Linguistic
that form class distinctions do
whether the
lead
us
predominate
there could
Thus,
early word learning.
in
class
that
rule
the
out
of these regularities lies in the
source
the
to
regularities
even if
in vocabulary acquisition are found, we must first
language itself - its patterns of word order,
first,
objects and lexicalized in adult
children's
thus
concepts
predominantly nouns.
If
care must be exercised here:
and
of stress,
so
on - before accepting the Natural Partitions hypothesis.
According to the Natural
particularly
these
to
the
up
part of the speech stream.
considered
more
are
half of the problem is already
match
to
remains
Partitions hypothesis,
Partitions
than the general stream of percepts.
because
equal,
they
because
Then children should learn the words for
all
some
that
Suppose
to
possibility
stable,
more
or
is
in learning word meanings,
separate from the world stream, perhaps
salient,
However,
are acquired
nouns
Natural
the
of
supportive
be
that
be purely linguistic factors that would cause one form
information are particularly easy to
perceptual
finding,
opposite
perceptual-cognitive
streams.
two
these
up
of
collections
could
and the stream of language
world around,
the
The child's task,
match
earliest,
hypothesis.
the
of
stream
ongoing
information:
being spoken.
of
streams
two
has
language
learning
infant
An
The
categories.
Evidence from Children's First Words
form
it
of
not
reflect
prior
would invite investigation of
Whorf's
also
hold:
that
to
believe
in
hypothesis,
form
class
corresponding
Linguistic
distinctions
conceptual
Some
kind
general assumption that children's early
The
psycholinguists.
language learning utilizes preexisting
widely
shared
(Anglin,
1979; H. H. Clark,
1973; Dore,
1976; E. V. Clark,
Bates,
1977;
1975; Greenfield
& Hoogenraad,
1979; Huttenlocher,
Nelson,
1974; Piaget,
1963;
Vygotsky,
1962).
is
1973,
1976;
& Smith,
1974; Macnamara,
1972;
Zwart,
1969;
Slobin,
Macnamara
(1972)
is quite
Sinclair-de
For example,
structures
cognitive
Grieve
1973;
and
psychologists
developmental
among
view
dominant
implicitly the
cognitive determinism view is
of
close to the specific claims of the Natural Partitions hypothesis
in proposing that cognitive
acquisition
of
different
difficulty
kinds
of
of
acquisition as follows:
their variable states and actions,
attributes.
He
order
of
with object
word meanings,
reference as the simplest and earliest meaning.
order
the
predicts
predicts
an
names for entities, names for
and names for
more
permanent
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
opposing view, that form class is learned independently
The
of conceptual structure,
Maratsos and Chalkley argue that any
(in press).
Chalkley
and
Maratsos
by
has been vigorously argued
attempt to define form classes semantically is doomed to failure,
because there are
find
can
one
verbs
"have," and
"red"--then
"comprise"
why are statives such as "know,"
verbs?
as
classified
the
In
into
two
different
classes--e.g.,
form
First, the
counterexamples
invalidates
necessarily disprove the existence of a
Rosch's
(1975) work,
for example,
ostriches are birds.
any
counterexamples,
but does not
psychological
category.
denoting
terms
and
Chalkley
Relativity
position,
predict
there will be no particular order of acquisition of
nominals versus predicates,
or that, if
such an order exists,
it
can be accounted for by purely language-based differences between
the two categories.
people think of robin-like
though
they
also
first
step,
in evaluating these positions is to examine
believe
the distribution of children's first
Note
We need to ask not whether
but
that
Linguistic
nominals.
be
such as the Maratsos and
that
either
will
The evaluation of a putative category
thus becomes more complicated.
exist
of
terms
these
Our
forms as their prototype birds, even
that
number
small
category,
logical
a
a
The
drawn.
are
objects and entities will be acquired first across languages
that
of
predicts
hypothesis
Partitions
positions,
existence
the
Thus,
regularities.
acquisition
predictions for early vocabulary
in
linguistic
by
for
accountable
distributional
as
such
factors,
asymmetries
"make
We will return to these issues later, but for now two points
should be noted.
Any
correlates.
conceptual
of
the
of
skeptical
are
they
privilege;
other
noise"/"be noisy;" "like"/"be fond of."
In
syntactic
of
Natural
mapped
and Chalkley position is that form class is a
Maratsos
The
acquisition should therefore be
direction, one can find cases in which the same semantic concepts
are
predicate terms.
existence
or
and
terms
verbs and adjectives, and not between object-reference
denote
more or less enduring, often involuntary states and dispositions"cold"
on crossovers between the various predicate form classes, such as
matter
changes of state--e.g., "break" or "melt"--and adjectives
-e.g.,
perceptive analysis of counterexamples relies heavily
Chalkley's
actions and processes such as
often-voluntary
denote
healthy
a
form
sufficient to
is
The second point to notice is that Maratsos and
natural concept.
example,
For
attributes within categories and nonshared
attributes between categories,
exceptions; i.e., words that belong to the
class but do not satisfy the semantic description.
if
form
a
of
description
for every possible semantic
categories,
class
Going from form class to conceptual
in both directions.
mapping
conceptual-syntactic
the
to
counterexamples
shared
of
tendency,
whether
that
we
are
concerned
here
words
across
form
class.
with adult form class.
The
there
the degree of central
Natural Partitions hypothesis makes no
claim
that
these
early
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
10
object-reference words are conceived of as nouns by the children;
that
merely
Acquisition of English Vocabulary
tend to be words that are considered nouns in
they
A
for
as
To claim that these words function
the adult grammar.
Study
Case
of
Early
Production.
It
nouns
is
a
common
observation
that
earliest.
Table 1 shows the set of first words learned by Tad,
children
learning
English
acquire
nominals
the child would require assigning form-class distinctions at
before the child has clearly demonstrated any
the one-word stage,
an American-English-learning boy whose vocabulary acquisition was
such knowledge.
closely observed by both his mother and the author.
(or
whether)
children syntactically categorize their early words is
irrelevant
More
to
the
noun
fundamentally,
acquisition
namely,
is
The
derived
first
from
concepts
The prediction of early
two
assumption is
conceptually-based
that certain concepts--
Assumption
(2)
The second assumption
are
cohesive concepts,
is
that
these
same
particularly easy for children to grasp as
separate from the general
perceptual
milieu.
predicts that children should learn the names for
object-reference concepts early.
out
how
concrete object concepts--tend to be lexicalized as nouns
in adult languages.
object
of
question
Partitions hypothesis.
Natural
assumptions.
the
By assumption (1),
to be nouns in adult language.
these
turn
Their syntactic role for the
child is not at issue.
The plan
acquisition,
of
paper
in
is
English
to
and
present
then
in
indicating early acquisition of nouns; then to
language-based
factors
observed; and finally,
account,
to
accept
divided
nominal terms,
include
into
four
primitive
categories
words
of word meaning:
which have the function of object
reference,
and
both what adults would call common nouns and what adults
would call proper nouns; predicate terms, which refer to actions,
changes of state, or other predicate notions,
adults
terms,
and
include
what
would call verbs, prepositions, and modifiers; expressive
which function either directly to express a feeling
"ouch") or as part of a ritual (e.g.,
"bye-bye");
and
(e.g.,
finally,
indeterminate terms, which have ambiguous or multiple usage.
example
of an indeterminate word is
used when the child was
urinating,
(An
"pee," which, because it was
could
have
been
either
a
nominal, referring to the urine, or a predicate, referring to the
act of urinating or to the change of state from dry to wet.)
the
first
are
The
that
having
the
might
account
ruled
Natural
speculate on its underlying causes.
out
a
early
vocabulary
other languages,
consider
for
the
purely
The
pattern
of
acquisition
predictions of the Natural
shown
Partitions
here
conforms
hypothesis.
The
to the
words
various
learned
earliest (at 11 to 13 months) were nominals referring to
patterns
objects,
e.g.,
linguistic
Partitions hypothesis,
and to
considerably
"Daddy,"
later.
"dog," "duck."
Only
one
word
Verb-like
terms
entered
acquired in the first 16
months could possibly be considered a predicate:
the word "yuk."
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
12
11
Table 1
Table 1 Continued
Order of Acquisition of Words by an English Speaking Boy, Tad
Age
Nominal
11 mo.
dog
12 mo.
duck
13 mo.
Daddy
14 mo.
15 mo.
16 mo.
Indeterminate
Predicate
Expressive
Age
Nominal
19 mo.
apple
Indeterminate
Predicate
teeth
cheek
yuk
knee
Mama
elbow
teh (teddy bear)
map
car
ball
dipe (diaper) toot toot (horn)
block
owl
bus
keys
jeep
cheese
Total: 44
eye
No.
(Prop.)
30
(.68)
4 (.09)
5
(.11)
Total: 13
21 mo.
No. (Prop.)
11
(.85)
1 (.08)
1 (.08)
toe
back(piggy-back
stuck
0
ride)
18 mo.
cow
bath
hot
happy sauce
cup
moon
kitty
pee pee
juice
TV
oops
bee
down
boo
tree
up
hi
bird
spoon
bye
pole
bowl
uh oh
bottle
towel
off
(apple sauce)
truck
19 mo.
Expressive
happy
wheel
water
down
5
(.11)
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
13
14
Even this might better have been considered an expressive term at
this
stage,
because
it
was
used
as
encountered food that he didn't like.
predicate
Table 1 Continued
Nominal
21 nno.
cookie
Indeterminate
Predicate
Expressive
generous
count
16 months.
example,
"that
yuk."
further
acquired
modifier-like
No.
(Prop.) 41
like
(.60)
5 (.08)
9 (.15)
5 (.08)
it
as
Thus,
the
a
most
at
18
predicates--"hot"
and 19 months.
months, 10 months after the first nominals,
Total: 60
counted
would give only one predicate term by the age of
Two
"happy"--were
peach
I have
because it was later used as a modifier in combination
with other words--for
Age
an exclamation when Tad
predicates--"down"
though restricted,
and
Only then, at 19
did the
"up"--appear.
and
first
verb-
Their early uses,
clearly involved changes of state.2 "Down" was
used when Tad wanted to be taken out of his highchair,
and
"up"
when he wanted to be picked up and held.
Nouns
are
the
predominant
early
forms; moreover,
subset of the possible noun types occurs.
collections,
We find
no
such as "forest;" no abstract nouns,
words
first
learned
objects and beings.
practice
contains
Even apparent
names of entities.
referred to a particular
dog,
names
of
such as "joy;"
and very few mass nouns (although "milk" does appear).
of
only a
The
set
chiefly names for individual
class
names
For example,
Tad's
were
the first
grandparents'
often
in
word,
"dog,"
pet.
The
second word,
"duck," referred to a small ceramic object (actually
a
that sat on the kitchen table.
chicken)
with considerable prompting,
pond.
"Daddy"
appropriate
and
"Mama"
individuals,
About a month later,
it was applied to live
were
although
at
first
"Daddy"
ducks
in
a
used only for the
was
very
soon
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
15
generalized
to
another
similar-appearing
man.
16
"Teddy" (Teddy
highchair,
and for no other purpose; it,
too, was the name of
0\
0
r-4
Bear) was used for a picture of a teddy bear on the back of Tad's
4-i
0
an
individual entity.
CO
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41
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Generality of the Early Production Patterns in English.
pattern
of
4
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4-)
The
observation
of
in
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Greenfield and Smith (1976),
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early acquisition of object-reference terms is quite
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earliest
clearly
linguistic
nouns--for example,
pattern:
The
z
word uses were referential uses of
"dada," looking at father, at 7 or 8
o
0
4-4
months.
a
For
both children, the earliest relational predicate was "down,"
occurring at 13 or 14 months of age.
and "bay"
Again,
(play),
entered at
16
The first true verbs,
and
20
months,
"eat"
respectively.
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show
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same
studies
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pattern.
Dewey
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and
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a
final
vocabularies,
piece
Table
of
evidence
on
early
production
P4
The set
of
a
the
'0
'0-
first eight-to-ten words learned by these children shows a strong
individuals.
of
nouns
that
refer
Q
:
0
$4
preponderance
Co
a
%0 H
a
2 shows data from eight children studied by
Katherine Nelson (tabulated from Nelson, 1973).
C0
^b
a
0
'0
'0
Hu
03
co p0u
$
4
to concrete objects and to
'.
')
41
00
C4
Co
Co
.
Co H
00
H
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coj '0Cd
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Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
18
17
is
There
children.
Again we
"Mommy"),
names
is
it
that seems to be clear is
for
or
individuals
that
controlled
(1976),
Gelman
fact
in
for
form a large part of a
over
are
which
study
all production data.
by
Seligman,
Goldin-Meadow,
interviewed
at
irregular
or
to
act
out
actions
experimenter (comprehension).
expectably,
are
two
Nouns
Verbs
Nouns
Verbs
22.0
35
22
7
0
24.2
54
26
17
0
25.0
58
27
28
3
25.1
61
27
40
7
19.1
22
14
5
0
22.1
40
16
9
0
22.0
46
not recorded
29
and
Melissa
2
intervals
that
also
were
to
point
mentioned
by the
Data from this study are shown
main
points
to
notice
here.
in
First,
production lags behind comprehension for all children
in all age ranges, and for both word
classes.
Second,
not recorded;
some produced
to
Table 3.
There
Number of Words
Produced
and at each interview were asked both
3 to 4 months,
to name objects and actions (production) and
objects
Lexie
Fortunately,
compared the production and comprehension
The children were
about
Child and Age
(mos. & weeks)
The
English.
in
Production
for nouns and verbs of children aged 8 months to about 2 years,
months.
Number of Words
Comprehended
One thing
whether
terms,
referential
& Gelman, 1976)
which for
are
objects,
basic-level classes,
presented
far
there is a
Number of Words Comprehended and Produced by Three English-speaking
Children (adapted from Goldin-Meadow, Seligman
some of the common nouns,
Patterns of Comprehension and
so
objects,
linguistic gains in English.
child's first
data
Table 3
As described with
such as "apple."
individual objects at the outset.
to
refer
to
example,
(for
individuals
adults refer to any member of a class of
used
among these
overlap
We also find names for mobile
that
possible
of
and names of small objects, such as
of animals,
such as "cars;" and for food,
Tad,
of
names
find
"bottle," "ball."
"map,"
amount
considerable
a
within
Jenny
14.0
27
9
10
0
16.0
33
14
19
0
17.0
38
18
29
4
17.1
45
18
34
6
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
20
19
either
The first child,
and
verbs lag well behind nouns.
production or comprehension,
began by producing no verbs at
for example,
than 10 verbs.
fewer
comprehending
At the close of the study,
this
non-English languages were in general working on different issues
30
simple
that
and
nouns
nouns
verbs in the child's vocabulary is supported for
simple
precede
32
producing
result
the
Thus,
comprehending 48 nouns.
The researchers who kindly provided the early-vocabulary data for
greatly
showed
but still
nouns,
with
performance
all
the child produced about five
verbs and comprehended about 18 verbs,
superior
almost
comprehending
child was producing about 10 nouns and
nouns.
At the same time,
comprehension as well as production.
It
nouns
particularly
individuals,
simple
are
referents
whose
learn
children
seems that English-speaking
before they learn predicate terms.
nouns,
have anything close to this for most of the languages considered.
and
in some cases had to derive the vocabulary data from corpora
The methods of data collection are
collected for other purposes.
described
in
methods:
detail
(1)
Appendix
in
A.
retrospective reports,
There
were
which
or
parents
(3)
taken
from
(2)
journals,
other caretakers kept on-going vocabulary
in which the vocabularies
were
sessions with the children.
The
sample transcriptions,
lists;
basic
in which parents were asked
to write out their children's entire vocabularies;
in
three
transcriptions
of
and
objects
or
This evidence so
retrospective report method was
children.
used
for
Japanese
and
German
The journal method was used for the English children,
(except the child called Dewey A.),
with varying
updating.
method
frequencies
of
However,
far is compatible with the Natural Partitions position.
before we can make any real headway we need to know whether
this
The
(source:
Bambi
transcription
Schieffelin),
Mandarin
was
used
Chinese
in
Kaluli
(source:
Mary
pattern is general across languages.
Cross-linguistic Vocabulary Acquisition
To
nominals
discover
holds
vocabularies
for
Mandarin Chinese,
Ideally,
the
whether
outside
pattern
English,
children
learning
and Turkish,
us
now
German,
compare
early
Kaluli, Japanese,
one would like to have had complete daily journals,
psychologically
sensitive
caretakers,
for children in each language.
We do not
and
and
source:
Nail Sahin).
of
source
types
Turkish
must
reason
(source:
Dan
Slobin;
original
The manifest deficiencies of this
be
strength of the conclusions.
considered
as
Nevertheless,
a
variety
limitation on the
because there
is
no
to suppose that these data are biased with respect to our
hypotheses,
as well as English.
kept by assiduous linguistically
full-time
let
of early acquisition of
Erbaugh),
they can be taken as representative.
Table 4 shows the
pattern
of
form-class
acquisition
for
children of six different languages.
There
is
overwhelming
agreement
among
these
different
Table 4
Proportions of Form Classes in Early Vocabularies
Proportion of Form Classes
Indeterminate/Other
Expressives
Predicates
Language
Child
Age
Sex
Total
No. of Words
Nominals
MandarinChinese
Ming Ming
1-5
M
20
.65
.30
0
.05
Xiao Jing
1-6
F
37
.59
.24
.02
.14
Masatsugu
2-5
M
15
.73
.13
.07
.07
Mikiko
2-0
F
16
.81
.13
0
.06
Shunsuke
1-2
M
19
.68
.26
.05
0
Sayaka
1-11
F
110
.69
.25
.07
.05
Suella
1-8
F
16
.50
.31
.06
.13
Wanu
1-11
M
54
.61
.20
.11
.07
Johannes
1-6
M
4
.50
0
.50
0
D
CD
Martin
1-8
M
33
.67
.27
.03
.03
p(D
Tad
1-4
M
13
.85
.08
0
.08
?
Mollie
1-2
F
39
.69
.13
.13
.05
Scooter
1-10
M
79
.75
.11
.08
Japanese
Kaluli
German
English
H
.06
0
a
0
Dewey A.
1-7
M
115
.60
.35
.05
Turkish 1
1-2
F
27
.71
.18
.04
.07
Turkish 2
1-4
F
42
.57
.24
.07
.12
Turkish
0
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Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
23
first step is,
Our
earliest in more
do
patterns
in
therefore,
detail,
to
to examine the words acquired
decide
whether
these
form-class
03
0-
fact correspond to similarities in the kinds of
real-world objects referred to.
purely
24
factors,
linguistic
Our second step
to
see
whether
is
compare
to
commonalities
02%
r-I
0
z
0)
4-J
4-4
0
ca
02
in
0
acquisition can better be accounted for
hypothesis
Partitions
Natural
will
within
of
across
referents)
real-
The Linguistic Relativity
languages.
view will be supported to the extent that children's first
words
5 shows,
Cc
E-i
Conceptual Commonalities
41
0
3
02
numbers of proper nouns (such as "Mama,"
"Aunt,"
We find large
and
"Daibo").
"cooked
rice");
and
for
(e.g.,
"milk," "banana,"
well-defined
small,
and
'l
2
$
0
CD
0)
4-4
00
co
Q)
3
cd
02
')0
CO
J
CO
(1
'
0
o o o02
024 02
CM
£-i
"car"
or
"bus,"
as
Q)
02
Ue
02
'H
4.
*rl
r-l
3
3
0
(certainly
at
least
the
Kaluli
of
New
O
$4
02)
*ir
o.
0$4
%02 "0
co
0
02
4,
H
'
rr
v
(
P
Q
?^
02
o
02
,0
3'.
0
P3c
00
d
co
a.
02
04
00
02
CO
'02
'02
02
i-
o
•r4
02
ca
4-J
0
[I1
a
CM
toys,
receive less exposure to vehicles than others.
body
parts,
and
0
H
0
§ 0 CO
3
03
0
02
00
02
C3
00
02
02
0
N
'H
Terms for
clothes occur in more than one language
aS
02
Q)
'4
Guinea)
00
0
02
4H
0C
^
Ilicd
Cd
Cd
.
02
) a)
i-l
are not so common universally, perhaps because
some of the cultures
4J
U
02
«H
02
3
*H02.
02
02
CD P
02
02
02
02
02
0
2 9
H
0)
H
p
1-
C,
movable objects
Terms for vehicles, such
"ball," "shoe," and "sock").
c2
00
:3
02
40
02
02
1502
0
X
02
02
Cl,
01
H
0
z
P04
0
4L)
.
<Z
Z
02
020C2O2
.
02
co
0
CD
02
rl
4-1
02
(3
0
02
0
02
62
0
ti-i
'Hl
'l
H^
0
(e.g.,
0
'0
U$4
0-
are also a large number of names for, animate beings (e.g.,
"dog," and "pig"); for food
02
0
$4
0
0)
r0
"baby,"
4-
0 co 0S d50cocaC
c0
0
The referential commonalities are impressive.
02
4
02
0P
o
a
-I
4C
There
r-4
co
U
4-i
ril
02
0
H
-.4
m
words in the sample.
studied, the set of first
0o
41
'0
for one child from each of the six languages
a)
o
0
02
a)
H
4-i
0
E0)
4-J
c0
C0
share purely linguistic characteristics.
Table
0i
3
I
0o
r-l
X
04
0
p
.l
world
0
0
be supported to the extent
that children's first words share meanings (or classes
0
-H
4-1
The
language.
02
Q)
0
Table 5 Continued (2)
Language:
_ German
English
Turkish
Japanese
Kaluli
Mandarin__
baby
baby
baby
mouse
pig
horse
dog
dog
dog
bird
dolly
cat
cat
kitty
Common Nouns:
Animate beings:
chicken
girl
bear
Food:
milk
milk
juice
apple juice pacifier
cheese
cheese
banana
noodles
breakfast
raisin
chocolate
orange
bottle
bread
cracker
sugar
egg
cake (1)
food
water
uncooked rice
lunch/dinner
cooked rice
0
(D
(D
t-{
SM
cD
0
cake (2)
ID
CD
Cr
01
Table 5 Continued (3)
Language:
Toys:
German
English
Turkish
ball
book
ball
shoe
shoe
sock
sock
Clothes:
Body Parts:
nose
Vehicles:
Japanese
Kaluli
Mandarin
eye
car
car
choo choo
bus
truck
Other:
moon
moon
pencil
stars
star
towel
red envelope
tree
mirror
hand clock
sea
radio
wall clock
spoon
flower
light
lamp
nail
electric cord
leaf
TV
0O
CD
(D
M
I-1
(r
S
(D
newspaper
CD
ct
Table 5 Continued (4)
LjaL6r6a8U
-e
Rno liih
Turkish
Jaranese
LA. 6%LgAL
Kaluli
Mandarin
9(.27 7)
5(.13)
10(.24)
5(.31)
9(.24)
cry
run
cry
all gone
go
rGerman
YXLLLCLL
9(.27
PREDICATES:
%&
2(.13)
Verb Type:
Action:
stir-stir
beat (w/fork)
Change-of-State: come
all gone
come
more
put on
more
come
down
all done
give
go (to work)
eat
eat
go
1<
Action plus
0
Change-of-State: eat
sleep
went pooh
get up
wash
eat
pick up,
walk
C
(D
0,
..
spill
clean
Experience:
Stative:
want
want
want
want
hot
not want
(D1
0-
afraid
CD
n>
0
correct
<"
(CD
(D
I-
Table 5 Continued (5)
Language:
German
English
Turkish
Japanese
Kaluli
Stative:
Mandarin
be at work
not yet
EXPRESSIVES:
1(.03)
5(.13)
3(.07)
1(.07)
1(.06)
1(.02)
no
no
hello
no
no
thank you
hi
good-good
thanks
bleble
(pulling ears)
bye bye
please
Z
OTHERS, MULTIPLE
OR INDETERMINATE: 1(.03)
doo doo
2(.05)
5(.12)
1(.07)
2(.13)
5(.14)
doo doo
outside
writing
there,
pee
0
O
(D
pee pee
where pencil
cover
bugum-buve
(phrase said when thirsi
not
that
0,
(emphatic)
this
1, 2, 3, 4
w
0
CD
Ca
cD
0t
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
30
29
but
sample
are
categories of nominal
These
universal.
not
Nelson
categories
reference accord fairly well with the nominal
also
account
for
the acquisition order.
There are a number of
nonconceptual differences between the words in
her
study of children's early vocabularies in
might,
English (see Table 2).
Besides proper nouns (including Mommy and
acquisition of one sort of word than another.
in
found
(1973)
also
Daddy), Nelson found food, animals, toys, and
parts,
body
position
in
possible
Predicate
are
terms
less
far
the
varied,
systematically
sentence,
account
for
Word
earlier
frequency,
morphological transparency are
and
We evaluate each of these in turn.
explanation,
that
language
frequency
of exposure,
The
first
can be reasonably
the early
in
represented
well
But here again we find
vocabularies.
they
prime candidates.
and other objects.
vehicles,
if
a
evaluated
within
English.
The
require
others
commonality.
considerable
crosslinguistic comparisons.
The
predicates are in most cases either simple change-of-
early
such as "allgone," "more," "go," or "down;"
state terms,
terms (what Chafe,
change-of-state
plus
action
such as "spill,"
action-process verbs),
or
else
1970 would call
"pour," or "eat."
There
are also some predicates that refer to experiential states of the
speaker, such as "want."
terms,
expressive
as
are
patterns,
of
"thank you," as well as some
"no,"
These
terms.
indeterminant
referential
such
Finally, there are a smaller number
particularly
patterns,
the
stable enough to provide support for
Frequency.
learn
The frequency explanation would be that children
first because nouns are more frequent in the speech
nouns
hear.
that they
immediately,
This
because,
at
least
frequency patterns occur.
each
fairly
in
In
into
adult speech,
number
trouble
the opposite
of
nouns,
and
a smaller number of verbs,
the
class
of
most-frequent
each
words
verbs and other predicate terms greatly outnumber nouns;
the notion that cognitive categories are the basis for first-word
In a sample of the 100 most-frequent
acquisition.
Francis
are
runs
Adults use a large
infrequently,
much more frequently.
spoken,
argument
possible
(1967)
verbs
words
in
the
Kucera
and
one-million-word corpus of written language,
(including
auxiliaries)
and
only
6%
are
20%
nouns.
Possible Language-Based Explanations
Prepositions
So far, we have examined the first part of the language-andthought
question.
commonalities
part
of
the
language-based
among
There
do
indeed
seem
to
be
the first words children learn.
question
is
commonalities
whether
among
there
the
are
first
words 39%.
constitute
If
word
14%,
and
frequency
conceptual
vocabulary
The second
prepositions before they learned
nonconceptual,
words that could
certain
acquisition,
grammatical
terms,
were
children
pronouns
and other function
the
determinant
sole
would
nouns;
and
learn
they
verbs
would
such as "the" even earlier.
of
and
learn
Yet we
have seen that verbs are acquired after nouns, and function words
are acquired even later (Brown,
1973).
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
31
though,
Perhaps,
32
this table of written frequencies does not
6
Table
reflect the frequencies of spoken speech.
as recorded
frequencies of words used in telephone conversations,
by
occur;
patterns
Similar
and Koenig (1930)
Carter,
French,
of
terms
grammatical
(quoted in Miller,
various
kinds,
5,
we
see
that
Table 6
Looking
the
on
If
average.
a
frequency-of-exposure
An
limitation
important
argument
by
children,
makes
the wrong
heard
again
here
is
these
that
1977).
adult
Newport,
Perhaps word frequency
patterns
differ
For example,
speech.
use a small number of nouns,
in
to other adults.
speech
those
from
than
that
these
motherese,
is
do
out
the
early nouns are simply the words spoken
most frequently to children.
evidence
they
Without precise descriptions of the
parents' input to children, we cannot definitively rule
possibility
of
in speech to children adults might
each more frequently,
However,
that in the Newport et al.
no correlation was
found
one
piece
(1977)
between
of
counter
investigation of
the
Types
(Prop.)
11,660
.15
1,029
.46
11.33
9,880
.12
634
.28
15.58
12,550
.16
456
.20
27.52
9,450
.12
37
.02
255.41
Prepositions and conjunctions
12,400
.16
36
.01
344.44
Pronouns
17,900
.23
45
.02
397.78
Articles
5,550
.07
3
.001
Nouns
Auxiliary verbs
& Gleitman, 1977; Snow,
frequency
of
ratio
(Prop.)
Speech to
adults
Token-type
Tokens
Verbs
Gleitman,
example,
Parts of Speech
frequency
among
young children differs rather strongly from speech
for
Number (Proportion)
of words
Adjectives and adverbs
for communications between adults.
are
distributions
(See,
given
Verbs ought to be acquired before nouns.
prediction:
from French, Carter and Koenig, 1930 (quoted in Miller, 1951)
these production frequencies are a
reasonable approximation of the frequencies
then
Occurrence of Parts of Speech in Telephone Conversation,
at
a child listening to this conversation
would hear many more repetitions of a given verb than of a
noun,
are
and among content words,
nouns are less frequent than verbs and prepositions.
column
1951).
words
used
most-frequently
the
the
shows
Totals
79,390
2,240
1850.00
35.44
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
34
33
maternal
use of deixis (for example,
child's rate of learning
phrases,
of
"That's an apple.") and the
nouns
the
occurred
that
in
the
even though the noun is generally the only content word
use
maternal
Interestingly,
in such a deictic.
for
the
probably plays some role,
As
their number of inflections per noun.
it
although
is not an adequate
speech
mother's
that
the
of acquisition is the position of the word in the sentence.
causality:
Do
children
we
not
would
learn
certain
their parents say them a lot, or do
words
is
the
kinds
their
say
certain
because their children find them easy to understand?
really needed here is a planned manipulation of
mention.
Here,
a
small
but
of
direction
of words because
parents
What
frequency
of
telling study by Wick Miller is
relevant (reported in Ervin-Tripp, Note 4).
Miller played a game
involving plastic beads with a two-year-old child for a period of
about a year.
the
game,
so
He made up artificial words for
that
of a particular kind,
a particular kind.
after
67
inputs;
after 164 inputs.
elements
of
he knew exactly how many exposures occurred
before the child produced each word.
beads
the
The noun "po" was used
the
verb
for
and the verb "to sib" for actions of
The child first used the
noun
at
age
2;2,
was not used until 8 months later,
Well over double the number of
exposures
has
1975)
was
position
are
initial position.
and
likely
more
words.
occur
than
earlier
principle to sentences,
to
to
be
Items
at
than
ends
In
press)
The noun-final order
taped mothers interacting
with
English,
which leaves nouns
may
pronounced in some kinds of speech to children.
more
class
of sentences in a given language
normal word order is subject-verb-object,
at the end of the sentences.
prefixes,
form
should have a linguistic advantage in acquisition.
the
final
Extending this
prepositions.
this suggests that whichever
the
in
acquired early than items in
Suffixes are acquired earlier
postpositions
tends
One of these is that
strategies.
language-learning
children pay attention to the ends of
Even if we were to find
know
(1973,
Slobin
postulated a number of operating principles that appear to govern
children's
nouns learned earliest were just those words used most
frequently in motherese,
for
the
and
child's surface syntax, but not the child's semantic content.
There is a deeper problem, however.
explanation
A second linguistic factor that might determine
Based on crosslinguistic comparisons,
possible to show correlations between
frequency
et
Newport
is one of many instances in which it has been
this
remark,
al.
exposure
children's
ease
learning:
Thus,
the form-class ordering in vocabulary acquisition.
Word Order.
of
measure
one
with
positively
correlate
verb.
did
deixis
of
required
their
be
even
Messer
(in
fourteen-month-old
children in a toy room; he found that names of toys were the most
likely
to
occur
independently)
course,
the
at the end of the utterance,
to be the loudest
mere
fact
of
items
noun-final
in
and
and (probably not
the
sentence.
even noun-stressed
sentences does not tell us whether the children were more
to
acquire
these
nouns.
previously mentioned.)
(See the Newport et al.
Still, it
Of
could be argued
likely
[1977] study
that
children
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
35
learn
nominals
36
first in English only because they occur last in
heard
in the various uses of the word.
noun
the typical sentence.
inflections
distinction
The crosslinguistic patterns tend
to
argue
against
as
nominals.
a
general
considered
here
have
progressive.
and probably four,
verb-final
word
of
the
orders.
Japanese and
probably
shows,
nouns
variations
early
vocabularies
languages is
in
match
Yet, as
Table
the mean proportion of verbs
averaged
over
the
four
in
verb-final
identical to that for the two SVO languages, English
morphology
make it
the
use
of
and
this
thus
root
There is no clear,
transparency.
agreed-on
However,
it
way
to
make
with
to
a
root
and
order, then,
the
SVO
seems not to be the explanation
for the order of form class acquisition.
Morphological Transparency.
onto
language
is
easier
The
along
(Slobin,
1975).
of
mapping
to the extent that the mapping
between morphplogical units and underlying
clear
task
Another
meanings
possible
is
morphological
transparency:
the
the ease with which the root can be
verbs
if
will
a
their
forms.
word),
but extremely regular.
be
more
Turkish
the
has
complex
here
vary
across contexts.)
morphemes
the
regularity
of
is highly synthetic (many morphemes per
(It
is agglutinative:
added in a regular fixed order and preserve their
many
attached
language
The languages studied
average number of morphemes per word--and on
nonconceptual
in
morphological
both their degree of syntheticality-analyticity--i.e.,
regular
explanation for the early acquisition of nouns is differences
define
Because verbs are more highly inflected than nouns in most
morphologically than the noun.
child's
more
the greater the regularity of expression of the
morphology,
Word
learning
it
the regular
greater the lower the number and variety of inflections
complex
languages).
children
Perhaps
seems reasonable that transparency is
on the whole we can suspect that
six
such
occurrence of some real-world event.
languages,
and
the
more difficult for the
verb-final
languages
as
"kicking," and "kicks."
root.
and
such
but may hear for a verb
and Mandarin (.20 for both groups, with ten children learning the
ideas
singular-plural
inflections,
child to isolate the root of the verb,
to
the
the child hears only the variants "dog" and
features
predominate over verbs in these four languages.
As a rough quantitative measure,
the
to
position were the determinant of acquisition priority,
verbs would be acquired first in these languages.
4
aspect
variations as "kick," "kicked,"
difficult
final
some
"dogs" for a typical concrete noun,
these
which can have both SVO and SOV order,
a preponderance of verb-final sentences in language to children.4
If
and
Thus,
languages
Turkish are SOV languages; Kaluli has both SOV and OSV order; and
German,
number,
explanation of the early acquisition of
At least three,
restricted
in English,
the possessive; verb inflections include tense,
final
person,
position
and
are
For example,
Affixes are
surface
forms
Kaluli is highly synthetic and irregular, with
that
change
their
phonemic
realization
with
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
37
context.
German, Japanese,
analyticity,
and English,
38
in increasing order of
tend towards the analytical end of the continuum
languages.
At
the
of
extreme end is Chinese, which is among the
most analytical of languages,
having in the neighborhood
of
one
morpheme per word.
Examining
general
Table
4
in
again,
that
the first thing to notice is the
nouns
outnumber
predicates
quite
early vocabularies across all these languages.
The
mean proportions in the two highly
synthetic
and
are .60 for nouns and .23 for
Turkish,
averaged
predicates.
predicates
Thus
is
together)
the
pattern
of
nouns
predominating
the more analytic English-German-Japanese group,
.70 for nouns and .17
For
our
to
purposes,
their
which
the
key
comparison
greater
concerns the most
For,
morphological
few inflections that verbs and nouns
Mandarin,
of nouns.
changes,
complexity.
There
complexity,
are
are
if
nonanalytic
acquisition difference should disappear in Mandarin,
morphological
averages
nearly
a
the later
languages
then this
which has so
equivalent
in
few verb suffixes in
which creates a small morphological difference in favor
But the difference
and
in
is
minimal:
There
are
no
root
many sentences both the main verb and the noun
occur without affixes.
(See Erbaugh, Note 3,
for a more complete
Mandarin
The
predicates.
grammar
shows
mean
the
its
acquisition.)
noun-predominant
proportions
any
sizable
are
form-class
morphological complexity,
rule
and
Yet
acquisition
.62 for nouns and .27
for
Because Mandarin does not possess enough inflections
create
out
differences
differences
in
degree
of
the predominance of nouns here tends to
in
morphological
transparency
as
the
explanation for the acquisition patterns.
Patterns of Language Teaching.
Another nonconceptual factor
that could affect acquisition is cultural
teaching.
Kaluli
According to the
interest
other
acquisition of verbs in English and other
due
over
for predicates.
analytical of the languages, Mandarin Chinese.
is
patterns:
(Kaluli
although not as strong as for
quite strong,
still
languages
of
Mandarin Chinese still
to
observation
strongly
discussion
in
than
provides
Schieffelin
teaching
so
e.g.,
and
of
language
contrast
Kaluli
have
here.
little
the names of objects or beings,
the
society
is
largely
that children are not taught names for pictured
Instead,
mothers
give
their
children
explicit training in conversational interaction--
requesting,
appropriate
the
Moreover,
objects as in English.
extensive
interesting
(1979),
children
relatives.
nonliterate,
an
patterns
asserting rights,
remarks
teasing--often
for the child.
For example,
by
modeling
a mother tells
her two-year-old child to say "Give that back to me." or
"Is
yours?" to a cousin who has taken the child's plaything.
As Ochs
(1979)
the
it
points out, this situation.contrasts strongly with that of
English
samples
in
volunteering,
repeating,
standard
for
way
languages sampled
and
adults
are
which
more
object
asking
for
naming--including
object
names--is
to interact with children.
like
English
in
their
a
The other
language-
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
39
teaching
patterns.
In
particular, in the Mandarin community,
children are strongly encouraged to talk,
of
relatives,
40
animals,
numbers,
and
and to learn the
colors,
names
as well as some
the
sentence,
verbs--is
nor
to
speech on lexical acquisition
explain
et
al.,
1977),
between nouns and
order
of
form-class
do biases in language-teaching patterns appear
These factors
and
perhaps
(for
considerable effect.
But
the
in
almost
combination
certainly
they exert a
it
acquisitional
asymmetry
between
example,
and
predicates
is
extremely robust across variations in
seems reasonable that
these nonconceptual factors.
parental teaching strategies could
affect
the
kinds
of
This failure
to
account
for
the
words
earlier
acquisition
of nouns by factors internal to language or
In this case we should expect Kaluli children to
to
have
the
acquisition,
nouns
Newport
children learn.
differences
has proved difficult to find direct evidence for
effects of mothers'
1973;
adequate
acquisition;
affect
Nelson,
morphological
to be a sufficient explanation.
social routines (Erbaugh, Note 3).
Although it
or
relatively
few
nominals.
Indeed,
the
language-teaching
suggests
that
at
least
part
of
the
Kaluli ratio of
explanation must lie at the conceptual level.
nominals to predicates (.56 for nouns and .26 for predicates)
the lowest of any of the groups.
influence"
hypothesis,
is
Consistent with this "cultural-
Mandarin
and
American
children
The Natural Partitions Hypothesis
show
We
considerably higher proportions of nominals (an
average
of
are
hypothesis as
for
nouns and .20 for predicates).
Moreover,
left
with
some
the
most
reasonable
version of the Natural Partitions
.69
view
of
early
vocabulary
many of the Kaluli
acquisition:
nouns are names of relatives, a culturally approved category
that
nouns
are
learned
earlier
because
referents are more accessible than those of predicates.
children.
However,
the
noun-predominance
effect
is
Kaluli children still
show
twice
as
many
nominals
That
this
effect persists in Kaluli,
explanation
in
teaching
object
reference,
that
the
nominal
result simply from parents'
Overall,
for
the
are
which
more accessible than others.
Why do some parts of
stable
concepts
the child can learn lexical labels, while others take
bias in early vocabularies does not
much longer to
be
lexicalized?
Perhaps
pulled
out
of
the
stream
of
events
and
teaching strategies.
the nonconceptual factors do not appear to
predominance
some
is
for
evidence
why
despite the
the human experience form themselves early into
pronounced lack of interest
of
as
concepts
predicates.
However,
still
what this invites is a more intensive
there:
their
for
account
of nouns over verbs in early acquisition.
None of the language-based factors--word frequency,
position
in
predicative
tangible,
concepts
or
object concepts are more accessible than
because
they
higher in imagery.
right about these phrases,
they
are
more
concrete,
more
Although there seems something
aren't
completely
satisfying.
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
41
When
we
say
that object concepts are more concrete or tangible
than predicative concepts,
than
that
42
we
are we
really
saying
find them easier to learn?
anything
more
The next section
is
representational
differences
of
some
possible
underlying
between object concepts and relational concepts that
could lead to
the
acquisition
La botella entro en la cueva,
differences
between
nouns
and
In English we conflate the manner of motion ("floating")
verb,
leaving
opposite:
The
movement
Work
on
in Verb Conflation
componential
representation
1966; Bierwisch, 1970; Chafe,
Fillmore,
1971;
McCawley,
provided evidence
meaning
(1975,
are
for
commonly
the
1970; Fillenbaum & Rapoport,
1971; Postal,
claim
that
1971; Schank,
separable
variation
across
considered
to
satellites
fit
(for
languages
as
within
the
example,
to
which
verb
verb
and
is
which
elements
are
left
as
in
the
these
still
is
As alike as these two Indo-European languages are,
there
are
differences
in
the
choice of which semantic
differences
in
other languages.
conveys
as
similarly
(Talmy,
surface
of
a
stream
in
moving
the direction of a cave.
English and Spanish descriptions:
out.
on
the
cave
but
the
Talmy
and
the
Compare the
very
manner
of
argues that this
Spanish
motion
verbs.
similar languages conflate slightly
that
In many American Indian languages,
in
Talmy's
greater
the
which
moving
also
object
For example,
materials.
rained into the window," a
In Turkish,
belonged
includes
the shape of
terminology)
a typical form in Atsugewi.
constituted
1978).
Even
conceptual packaging can be seen in the verbs of
part of a transitive verb.
classification,
the verb.
bottle
left
the object that moves (the figure,
"It
a
to
different sets of relationships into their verbs.
information to include along with the basic change of location in
Talmy gives the example of
is
two
into the water." is
illustrative.
relative
is incorporated into the verb,
("flotando")
Thus,
included
English
the
La botella salio/se fue de la cueva, flotando.
Talmy
sentence.
and
just
of
considerable
elsewhere
Talmy's example of motion verbs in Spanish
motion
is
The bottle floated out of/floated away from the cave.
1973) has
meaning elements are
particles)
of
it
Other examples are:
1971;
lexicalized into one surface verb.
1978; forthcoming) points out that there
direction
In Spanish,
pattern is quite general in English
(for example, Bendix,
into the
the direction of motion of the bottle relative to
the cave ("into") as a satellite.
("entering")
verbs.
Cross linguistic Variability
flotando.
One would like a more
analytic account of the conceptual differences.
a discussion
The bottle floated into the cave.
ashes,
"It
is
dirted
Here
"dirted"
the
dirtlike
to
sand,
and
other
This form is analogous to our
much
rarer
pattern
in
English
an evidential particle that conveys
the manner of witnessing the event is
included in the verb.
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
43
is evidence, then, for crosslinguistic differences in
There
patterns of lexicalization of
But
what
44
about
relational
elements
into
verbs.
of
a one-year-old child standing on the bank
Further,
objects.
would parse the scene into the same collection of objects.
Returning to the bottle in the water,
nouns?
This fixity does not obtain for verbs.
suppose you are standing on the riverbank with a Spaniard
and
markedly in the way in which
verbs
you
say,
"The bottle floated into the cave."
not be too disconcerted, though you may find it slightly
of
the
however, comments
smaller,"
as
bottle
(in
moving
English
floatingly.
neck
to
The Palaverian,
canek
is
getting
of
the
bottle
and
parsed
The Palaverian has
lip of the cave as a single
the
object, and notes that it is shrinking.
think,
odd
where "canek" means the object composed of the neck of
the bottle and the mouth of the cave.
the
"The
gloss)
proximity,
The
neck
demonstrate
and
body
lexicalization,
This
common
of
fate
the
as
bottle
they
share
I
display
boundary;
texture.
they
share
color
implausible that they could be parsed
as
and
close
move through the
water, have continuity of shape, and together
further,
belonging
a
implicit
the
belief,
as
to
that we refer to as "bottle" into one cohesive object.
this intuition is correct:
of
As
location.
into
we have seen, English treats the
object
relative
to
the shape of the object that is moving,
that a language is constrained by the
the perceptual world to make coherent lexicalizations
it
relational
terms
as
manner
the
of
intimately
location
and so on.
that when we lexicalize the perceptual world,
of
the
with
This suggests
assignment
of
is more variable crosslinguistically than that
of nominal terms.
Cases of crosslinguistic
noted,
such
variability
often
within
the
describable
same
more
in
class
differentiation
radically different parsing of the world,
of
in
nouns
have
been
as the many different words for seal in Eskimo; but
these differences are
terms
of
do
of
greater
objects.
Such
not
constitute
a
any more than would the
names for different-shaped bottles in Spanish
than in English.
bits
I believe
treats
the
another object; Atsugewi associates it
differences in degree of
is
Spanish
associated with the direction of the change of
It
totally
perceptual
of
differentiation
intuitive linguists, is that any
the
prepositions.
change
presence
language is overwhelmingly likely to parse
nature
and
closed
different objects.
Our
subpredicates
change of location as intimately associated with
would be truly puzzling, and you might well fail to grasp
the meaning.
conflate
The Spaniard
So far, you will
says, "La botella entrd en la cueva, flotando."
think
they
The bottle bobs by
speaker of an exotic language called Palaver.
and
Languages may differ
a
The basic decision as to which parts of the scene belong
the
If
seal
to
and which belong to the background is not in question.
Eskimo were found to have a term for,
say, the object composed
of the head of a seal and the crest of a nearby wave,
then
this
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
45
46
would constitute a case of crosslinguistic variability comparable
to
that
found
for
predicate
terms.
speculation that the referents of
constrained,
and
verbs
We
are
have,
then,
the
perceptually
therefore more variable across languages,
the referents of simple nominals.
If
objecthood
cohesive collections of percepts.
than
the
But why should this be?
certain
speculation
The Gestalt
psychologists
proposed
that
into
elements
lead
These ideas,
people
to
see
although appealing,
them
as
have lacked an
role
Recently,
of
however, Palmer (1977)
relations
in
adult
the
was
highly
different
predictive
tasks,
figures
into
figures,
timed verification of parts within
including
of
collections
perceptual
dividing
natural parts, rating the goodness of parts within
figures,
mental synthesis of figures from spatially separated parts.
This
evidence
for
the
position
Garner,
1978; Hinton,
1979; Palmer,
1975).
fewer
view
more
internal
sparsely
relations
of
percepts
that
certain
are
highly
universally
These highly cohesive collections
Thus concrete nouns are, in a
us.
learning
Children
sense,
given
of
to
language have already pulled out these
cohesive packages--the concrete objects and entities--from
(see
their
Because the language they are about to learn will
have been constrained to make the same mapping between perceptual
field and linguistic description, the child need only match these
preconceived objects with co-occurring words.
this
rather
Macnamara
object
also
the
for
some
name
of
as a whole; and not, as would be logically possible
as the name for only some parts of the object, or for its
or
(1972)
remarkable point that children apparently
take a word uttered while pointing at an object as
that
parts
of language invention, this idea
every language.
stresses
that the goodness of a
figure is predictable from relations among its
distributed
information tend to be lexicalized as nouns by almost
subject
timed
is
internal
computed,
and
finding
are
suggests that there are in the experiential flow
surroundings.
several
of
object
based on explicit definitions of the Gestalt part-part relations.
on
point
An algebraic measure
of goodness of figures and of component parts could be
performance
referents
conceptualized as objects.
Gestalt
relatedness among their parts.
measure
verb
has
degrees
goodness
many
an
He systematically constructed figures with different
This
the perceptual elements that are packaged
boundedness--
perception.
of
particularly
with one another.
cohesive
formalization.
investigated the
that
among
This line of thinking leads to
through the perceptual field and have
From
explicit
relations
into noun referents are very cohesive (i.e., have
an analytic account of the perceptual
relations--such as proximity, common fate,
integral object.
spatial
relations to one another), while the perceptual elements that are
needed here is
between perceptual
by
perceptual elements, then good concrete objects are
packaged
nature of objecthood.
created
less
Conceptual Cohesiveness
What is
is
color,
other aspect of the object (See Quine, 1969).
For
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
48
47
empirical work, see Anglin (1977), Gentner (1978b), and
relevant
Tomikawa and Dodd (1980).
restricted
set
the terms.
These extensions were often quite
"You put the pink one to me"
example,
from
mapping
Predicates show a more variable
concepts
of situations--followed
novel
(3 years,
errors--for
4 months,
request
to
".
to be given a pink cup);
. . put her just a little
bit big" (3
language has more degrees of freedom in lexicalizing
A
words.
by a period of extending
years,
than
objects
coherent
relations between
in
lexicalizing
instructions
0 months,
for
drawing girl); and "We are
the
surrounded of them" (4 years, 9 months,
referring to
bubbles
in
objects themselves, because the sparsity of interrelations allows
They
bath).
conflations.
good
equally
several
Different
patterns
were
still
energetically
experimenting
extremely frequent relational terms such as "give," "put,"
language
One
conflation will apply in different languages.
with
of
and
may
"off" at 5 and 6 years of age.
in
include
verb a semantic component that another language
the
conflationary patterns are
different
fields
semantic
perceptual field.
have
(1979)
and
combines
language
their
lexicalizes
remarked,
meanings
the
verb
meanings
cannot
be
and
Lui
are learned as part of a
Unlike concrete noun
piecemeal,
learned
how
elements of the
As Bloom (in press) and Huttenlocher
system of semantic distinctions.
verb
discover
must
children
terms,
across
Thus, for
a given language.
within
verbs and other relational
occurring
systematic,
often
as
a
particularly
developed
an
clear
implicit
hypothesis
in
English
is often expressed by a zero-morph.
demonstrate
the
For example, we
can say "The door is open." or "Open the door.", using
surface
verb
At this age, having previously
verbs
series of
children began to say things like,
like
the
same
first as a stative and then as a causative ("Cause
the door to become open.").
"fall" and
"Don't
eat
her.")
(Bowerman,
of
her
her,
"drop"
Mommy,
she's
correctly
for
some
time,
"Don't fall that on me."
smelly."
used
the
and
(meaning "Don't feed
1974).
difficulty
English
errors
are
children
in
other
languages.
For example,
one of Bowerman's
have in
daughters referred to turning on the television set as
knowing how relational terms are constituted in
their
standard
children's
patterns
errors
conflationary
patterns was their discovery, at around age 4, that the causative
In many cases the children's
semantic
concerning
What to Conflate
investigations
Bowerman's (1976, 1977)
in which Bowerman's children
case
meanings,
separate mappings between words and referents.
Acquisition of Predicate Meanings:
One
Moreover, these
places in a preposition of some other satellite.
"opening"
language.
it.
This usage is standard parlance in French.
A similar usage
Her children often showed a pattern of early conservatism--during
was reported by Ed Hutchins
which
a
relational
term
would
be
(Note
5)
when
an
adult
used correctly in a highly
Islander asked him to "open" (turn on) his tape recorder.
Trobiand
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
50
49
Another
in
case
variations resemble
developmental
which
crosslinguistic variations occurs for the notion of
(Note
Bowerman
action.
verb's
reversing
a
1) notes that reversal can be
lexicalized in English in three ways:
the
by use of
affix
un-
context
provide
some
one conversation, Gia (age 3) picks up a
"Button.
Button. Button. Button."
to put the disc into her pocket,
(for example,
load/unload; hook/unhook); with a verb and particle
investigator
asks,
construction
(for
pull on/pull off); or by means of a
the button?"
Gia
example,
(for
separate lexical item for the negative conflation
Although one can to some extent formulate rules for
open/close).
verbs take each of these kinds of reversal conflation,
which
the
arbitrariness,
here
choices
different
slightly
with
Dutch,
and
the
same
options,
there.
makes
Dutch parallels
for
English with "ontladen" (unload), but differs,
the
As evidence
rules are neither easy to see nor perfectly regular.
of
example,
example,
in
using "ontglippen" (literally, unslip) instead of our "slip out."
children
Bowerman's
"I'll get it
reversal--e.g.,
age
4;3,
of
numerous
made
after it's
appliance); ".
an
in
errors
lexicalizing
out"
plugged
(Christy,
struggling
with
.
.
.
experiment to
language.
discover
The
the
out).
of
relations are packaged into words
course
of
acquisition
predicate terms,
of
the
(e.g., Clark,
that
suggest
patterns
difficulty
the
disc
Pocket."
The
Where are you putting
to
the
investigator,
. . ."
and says "-bai/behp/beh beh/bai/
".
. . Gia knows what she wants
.
cannot express the relationship she wants to
can
name
separately
without
difficulty."
To say "Put the button into the pocket." Gia must
know that
language
her
directionality
requires
a
separate
preposition
for
(into) but conflates some notion of a goal of the
movement with the change of location in "put".
The
conflation
Natural
Partitions
pattern could be different in another language.
is
of
in
their
how
underlying
underlie
the
long
meanings
of
1971; Gentner,
verbs
1975,
and
does
not
must
just
learning
may
children
conflation
important
to
These
time
other
1978a; Kuczaj
perceived
note
assume
later than objects.
that
defines
means that some sets of
spatial
relations
with
an
each
point,
detailed observations of children's speech in
even
those
themselves
by this account,
are
it
is in
enduring set of relations
among
object.
percepts
the
relations
Indeed,
part the presence of a numerous,
percepts
that
that
with the rest of the perceptual
& Maratsos, 1975).
Bloom's (1973)
saying,
and shortly after, struggling
says "Pocket.
exist between the two objects she
hypothesis
errors
she
out
disc,
in
utterance, wanting the investigator to put
Bloom (1973) concludes:
It
production
the
the disc into her pocket,
[but]
plastic
"Where is the button?
holds
For example,
. . I had to untake the sewing"
(Christy, aged 5;6, talking about taking stitches
spontaneous
evidence for this claim.
(For example,
preserve
a
"common fate"
constant
set
of
other even though their relations
field
change.)
More
to
the
sparse relations that act as predicates over
objects are, I suspect, perceived quite early.
Movement,
change,
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
52
51
seem quite interesting to infants;
on,
relations among young children.
perceptual
It
difficult.
combines
language
their
how
is
know
not
do
children
use
is not perceiving
relations but packaging and lexicalizing them that is
What
to
ability
considerable
demonstrated
has
(1974)
Bryant
so
and
directionality,
only
produced
every
stage
We started with the observation that the distinction between
One appealing
this
of
on
must
be
If
counterview
of
this view is
may
distinctions
into
the
stems
from
perceptual
to be taken seriously,
Otherwise,
cause
the
us
Relativity:
that
noun-first
the
English
German,
learned
first
by
versions
of
in
This
language.
Linguistic
this
results simply from peculiarities of
possibility
of
early
vocabularies
by
refuted
was
from five other languages-Nouns
and Turkish.
Mandarin Chinese,
crosslinguistic
vocabularies
seem also to agree reasonably
conceptual
well as to the kinds of objects referred to.
hopes
are treated in
predominate over predicate terms in all the languages considered.
in this chapter we
children
noun
the
to
The most extreme possibility is that
phenomenon
Kaluli, Japanese,
possibility
words
nouns
purely linguistic
corresponding
read
Therefore,
world.
possible
various
the
The
to
conceptual
it
Whorfian
we cannot discount the
greater
the
belonging
which
in
way
the
words
of
between
world
the
language.
examination
Linguistic
distinctions
category
is
evaluated by some means besides the intuitions of adult
speakers of English.
examined
division
noun/verb
the one hand and relationships and other predicative
notions on the other.
acquisition
Relativity counterposition.
originally based on a division in the
objects
early
Partitions
Natural
Natural
But an equally defendable position is
that the
There are
the
that
states
which
hypothesis,
the
is
division
The
in
cause
the
places
hypothesis
for concrete nouns.
world
Conclusions
interpretation
interpretations.
before verbs is open to various
Partitions
1976).
al.,
et
finding that English-speaking children learn nouns
the
However,
more nouns than verbs at
(Goldin-Meadow,
observation
of
many
comprehended
transparency of the mapping between language and
relations and other subpredicates into word concepts.
nouns and verbs is a universal syntactic division.
but
This rules out
that the noun predominance in first-word learning
the
is
of
peculiar to English.
observing a more direct influence of thought on language.
But this still
We found a series of successively more general results:
in case studies, children learn nouns before predicate terms;
in the conceptual mapping.
(2)
noun
in
early production vocabularies,
and (3)
in one systematic study of
does not show that the explanation
(1)
It
could still
must
lie
be the case that early
superiority is caused by some purely linguistic factor that
nouns greatly outnumber verbs;
comprehension,
children
not
these languages all happen to share.
Therefore,
a
series
of
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
53
specific
language-based
evaluated:
(1) word
hypotheses
frequency;
morphological transparency.
was
considered:
widely
(4) patterns
on
considered
(2) word
order;
and
and
(3)
Also, one other nonconceptual factor
these was found to account
varied
was
54
for
of
language
the
teaching.
patterns.
The
None of
languages
every one of these dimensions, and yet in all
Verbs
and
transparent
other
predicate
relation
to
the
words,
however,
perceptual
world.
constraints
on
their
concrete nouns.
possible
conflationary
This means that a language is relatively free in
its choice of a system of relational meanings,
and this
the number of predicates.
those meanings purely by knowledge of the world.
are
two
or
of course,
and that different ones
factors
in
operated
explanation
cannot
crosslinguistic
be
definitively
comparisons.
these
an
factors
But
linguistic
these
disproved
has
linguistic
now
explaining
is
time
to
supported
a
both
This
patterns and by the errors in
conflation
observed
the
patterns
lay
aside
the
explanations and investigate the conceptually
the
concepts
child's
acquisition
point
of
claim
in
are given to us by the world and can be learned one
relational
predicate
turn
is
by the crosslinguistic variability in conflation
learning
more
in
child learning the language is less able to guess
without
become more cumbersome than
It
that
This composite
although the language-based
effect,
invoking conceptual differences.
purely
of
each of the six languages.
factors must surely have
by
there
three linguistic factors strong enough to cause the
acquisition order,
solely
possible that
Verbs--even
patterns than do
means
is,
a less
"concrete verbs" like "float" or "move"--have fewer psychological
cases the number of early nouns in the sample was at least double
It
have
terms.
To put it
children
strongly, object concepts
at
a
time;
form a system that must be invented or, from
of
verbs
view,
discovered.
Thus,
the
slower
results from the fact that the child must
discover both how to conflate subpredicates into concepts and how
to match these concepts with words.
based explanation.
One important limitation here
The Natural Partitions account has it
concrete
have
a
nouns
early
particularly
perceptual
world.
infants,
world--the
semantic
By
inevitably
"objects"--as
this
see
mapping
account,
some
Words that refer to these concepts
because
the
are
they
the
humans,
even
of
the
coherent and
easy
has already formed object concepts,
only match words and concepts.
learn
to
parts
particularly
stable.
child
children
as object-reference terms,
transparent
perceptual-conceptual
prelinguistic
because,
that
to
learn
and need
is
that
the
arguments
and
evidence for the Natural Partitions hypothesis can properly apply
only at the perceptual level.
nouns
nouns:
as
object-reference
The conceptual characterization of
terms
are
so
richly
to a subset of
Only there do
interrelated
that
virtually certain to be conflated together as objects.
This limitation has not been a problem here,
early
only
essentially, to concrete and proper nouns.
we find sets of percepts that are
they
applies
experience
presumably
because
children's
centers around just those kinds of
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
55
The
percepts.
concrete
that
nouns
in
appear
vocabularies are virtually all either concrete or
for
more possibilities
or "There was an increase in what things cost."
between
differences
and
concrete
abstract
can be extended into abstract conceptual realms as well.
ask whether,
the
object-like
conferring
nounhood
strong
reification,
if
all.
after
requires additional
think
of
as
it
occurs,
it
But
assumptions
hypothesis.
It
such
might
those
it
occurs,
the
Natural
if
of
would be hard to argue,
interrelated
Whorfian
the
reification,
beyond
cohesive
a
This kind of
fit
that the noun "blame" refers to a better object,
"blame."
example,
on a complex situation such as war or blame
to make further predications about it.
cohesively
abstract
For
privileges.
predicate-like
or
and
more
the
into
naming some substructure by a noun or verb gives
whole,
Partitions
over
carry
may allow speaker and listener to
hypothesis
One may
cognitive differences appropriate
categories
perceptual
whether
realm:
it
when this happens,
or
set of subconcepts,
for example,
even
to
the
acquisition
of form-class distinctions, the
Natural Partitions hypothesis prevails in the
between
diminishes when it
comes to
among
classes
different
acquisition
later
of
predicates,
only
very
since
of
a
than the verb
completely
still
verbs
and
form class assignment.
itself,
the
form
stronger
Linguistic Determinism,
is possible that
it
Indeed,
largely unconstrained.
in
becomes
the noun-predicate distinction is
Even
pronounced:
as
at the level of
Relativity
Linguistic
discourse,
world
perceptual
Finally,
account.
Chalkley
abstract
more
discourse
distinctions
as
such
the
on
constraints
weak
and
Maratsos
the
its role
Here the relation between language and thought moves
more towards Linguistic Relativity,
offers
distinction
However,
and predicate terms.
nouns
concrete
early
These patterns must be learned from the language
the noun-verb distinctions, once encoded syntactically,
domains,
to
"The
"There was runningness in what was being canine.")
Despite these
in
adjectives.
(Compare this to
of the analog in the perceptual domain:
unnaturalness
dog ran." vs.
abstract
increased."
price
We can say either "The
be variably selected.
the
In
only the predicate terms but also the nominals can
not
domains,
nouns.
there are many
patterns.
conflationary
Thus,
early
the
proper
move to more abstract domains,
we
once
However,
56
of
the
may have its day.
in
abstract
Whorfian
hypothesis,
Consider
a
case
in
which a given concept can be lexicalized either as a nominal or a
predicate,
(as
in
our earlier example of "an increase in cost"
It
versus "costs increased").
people
when
conceptual
expressed
interpret
habits
as
an
from
a noun is
is
intriguing
abstract
perceptual
to
text,
speculate
that
carry
over
they
domains,
that
so
"cost"
treated as more cohesive and more stable
than "cost" expressed as a
verb
or
preposition
(see
Gentner,
1981).
Yet,
although the role of the Natural Partitions hypothesis
is limited,
it may nevertheless be an
reference
mappings
may
provide
important
natural
one.
entry
Object-
points
into
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Be.fore Verbs
57
language--an
bootstrap
initial
themselves
58
set of fixed hooks with which children can
into
a
position
to
learn
the
APPENDIX A
less
Sources for Early Vocabularies
transparent aspects of language.
Kaluli
The
data
(Note 6),
from
Kaluli were obtained from Bambi Schieffelin
and consist of her translations
vocabularies
derived
from
Englis h
of
the
transcriptions of two one- hour tape-
recorded sessions with each of the two
The
into
children
included
here.
children were native Kaluli-speaking children from Papua New
Guinea,
and
were
Schieffelin.
recorded
Notice
that
in
and
around
their
homes
by
these data do not represe nt a total
vocabulary count, but rather a representative count.
Mandarin
obtained
Chinese.
from
The
data
from
Mary Erbaugh (Note 2).
Mandarin
observation
sessions
of
the
were
Here the vocabu lary count
represents translations into English of
during
Chi nese
utterances,
children,
native Mandarin Chinese in their homes in Taiwan.
t ranscribed
spea king their
Agai n,
this is
a representative count, not a total cumulative vocabula ry
count.
However,
in this case,
it
is of interest that the pare nts of one
child, when asked to give her vocabulary,
named most of the words
that were recorded for the child and named no words tha t were not
recorded.
parents
Thus,
Moreover the frequency of form classes
was
quite
name d
by
the
close to that obtained in the tran scription.
at least in this case,
this distribution of form classes is
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
59
60
roughly equivalent to the distribution that would be found if
the
parent's report of the child's total vocabulary had been used.
Japanese.
The
data
from
For
much
of
period
I
contact with the child and
journal.
Japanese
this
(the
helped
author)
in
the
was in nearly daily
maintenance
Thus the data for Tad represents a fairly close word-
by-word description of the child's vocabulary
in
San
Diego,
Naomi Miyake,
were
Jorge
Marrero and Edna Sullivan,
all students at U.C.S.D.
data
each mother's report of her child's entire vocabulary,
the
mother
In this
case,
their
meaning.
In all cases,
and both parents were Japanese-speaking.
children
had
gloss
of
the
one or two words of English, but in all cases,
the
bulk of their vocabulary was Japanese.
reportings
vocabularies.
English
the parents spoke Japanese in
the home,
parent's
to
in each of the four families) asking her to give
every word that the child spoke, together with an
of
of
their
Many
total
cumulative
adding
words
and
notes,
retrospective
children:
them
The
two
German
report
as
the
researchers interviewed the parents,
their
reports
of
the
cumulative
Japanese
and obtained from
vocabularies
of their
children.
at
of
In the case of Tad,
the
and her father reported new
roughly
semi-weekly
a
represents
fairly
vocabulary
acquisitions
intervals during the crucial period for
which the vocabulary was recorded.
close
Thus
account
of
this
collection
too
the child's cumulative
vocabulary.
monitored
were
taken
from
Dewey
(1894),
who
child's
mother
kept
a
the child's new vocabulary items as he learned them.
the
vocabulary
of
a child (presumably his own).
He
does not describe his method for collecting this data.
The data for Scooter were collected by her
the
who
child's
father,
Charles
listed all words spoken by Scooter at intervals in
development.
These
data
thus
fall
between
a
cumulative daily journal and a retrospective report.
Turkish.
The
communicated to me by
collected
English.
journal
vocabulary,
Jackson,
children were studied in the same
manner
way in which the child used the
the
The data from Mollie were recorded as the child was learning
so
these reports are probably more complete.
German.
on
The data for Dewey A
the mothers spent several hours
the day after the first interview
notes
Thus these data represent
children's
For two children,
complete
terms.
the
the
with
with the help of
method was to interview the principal caretaker (who happened
be
acquisition,
and
fairly
by
the
children were obtained
from four Japanese-American families living
collected
of
by
Nail
data
Dan
Sahin
for
the
Slobin
in
Turkish
(Note
Turkey,
7).
and
children
were
The
were
data
consists of English
translations of the vocabulary items used in a transcribed taping
session.
Thus,
like the Kaluli and Mandarin Chinese data,
these
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
61
data
are
a
representative sample,
taping sessions,
62
albeit one including several
Reference Notes
rather than the total vocabulary.
1.
Bowerman,
M.
The child's expression of meaning:
relationships among lexicon, syntax and
at
presented
morphology
3.
Erbaugh,
isn't
29,
4.
York,
Personal communication, May 1980.
M.
easier.
Linguistic
New
1981.
January 15-16,
Erbaugh, M.
S Paper
New York Academy of Science Con iference on
the
Native Language and Foreign Language Acquisition,
2.
Expanding
Acquisition
of Mandarin syntax:
Paper
at
Society
presented
of America,
the
Le ss grammar
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of
the
San Antonio, Texas , December
1980.
Ervin-Tripp,
S. M.
Some
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Paper presented at the Colloques Inte rnationaux
du Centre National de la
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bases
for
Recherche
early
fea tures
Scientifique,
December 1971.
5.
Hutchins, E.
6.
Schieffelin, B.
7.
Slobin,
D.
Personal communication,
May 1979.
Personal communication, May 1980.
Personal communication, May 1979.
No.
of
206,
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Cindy
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Jose
very grateful to Mary Erbaugh, Bambi Schieffelin,
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Department
51, 1103-1109.
language
1893,
at
Psychology at the University of California at San Diego.
I
Tracy,
conducted
I
thank Susan Carey, Avon
Lise
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Marilyn
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version
of
Elissa Newport,
the
paper,
Brian Smith,
and Melissa Bowerman,
Ellen
and Leonard Talmy for
many
delightful discussions of the issues raised here.
1
here
There are two caveats to notice here:
is
between
object-reference
predication is of states, actions,
a secondary question.
between
First,
the dichotomy
and predication; whether the
relationships or attributes is
The corresponding
syntactic
contrast
is
the category of nouns and a composite predicate category
composed of verbs, prepositions, adjectives,
and adverbs.
Thus,
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
75
the
shorthand
of
kind
a
is
distinction
"noun/verb"
for
3
A
possible
confounding is that more nouns than verbs were
justification
The
"noun/composite category of predicate terms."
76
tested; there were 70 nouns and 30 verbs.
classes--verbs,
syntactic
together
lumping
for
This, of course, could
adjectives,
have led to the apparent noun superiority.
reasons
distinctions among predicate classes are rather fluid compared to
the distinction between nominals and predicates.
is
point
second
The
conceptual
correspondence must clearly be taken as a distributional trend or
perceptual
For example,
abstract words.
almost always nouns,
(e.g.,
Again,
although
beneficiary)
and
verbs
true:
not
convey
that
There
relational
terms are
many
are
meanings.
prototypically
prepositions
the
particularly among
although object-reference
the reverse is
at
manifested
clearly
most
There are many exceptions,
level.
nouns
is
which
tendency,
central
convey
give and in),
relational
meanings can also be conveyed by other kinds of words,
including
relational
adjectives (e.g.,
are
there
concepts (e.g.,
predicative
edible, richer)
such
verbs,
information (here,
as
and adverbs (e.g., better); and
hammer,
that tend to convey object
(See also the discussion
the instrument).
there
are
to believe that the noun superiority was a real one, and
not an artifact of the item selection.
selected
were
postulated
this
that
However,
the
that
paper--is
this
in
emerge
will
prepositions--as
followed
on
the
several
consecutive
basis
of
two-year-old
assessing
days,
First, the
pilot
words
work in which Seligman
children
as
sample
for
five
to
eight
exhaustively as possible their
entire receptive and productive vocabularies.
Thus
the
form-
class asymmetry in the sample reflected an asymmetry found in the
subject
population.
Second,
the
children were very far from
ceiling level in comprehension and production of both categories;
it could not be argued that
demonstrating
their
full
the
children
the
samples
4
Dan
from
Thus,
as long
as
we
accept
basis
of Seligman's pilot work) that the verb and noun
were
equally
vocabularies,
of
prevented
knowledge of verbs by being tested on
only a subset of their vocabulary.
(on
were
representative
of
the
children's
the noun superiority result can be trusted.
Slobin
and
Catherine Snow have independently pointed
Maratsos and Chalkley's (in press) work.)
out to me that if
2
In
the
early
vocabularies,
according to apparent use by the
their adult form class.
term
state.
because
I have categorized predicates
child,
going
by
Thus, down is considered as a relational
the child initially used it
Had he used it
than
rather
as a stative
to request a change of
modifier,
to
describe
the
position of an object, it would have been scored as an adjective.
we consider language spoken to children, German
may have more verb-final sentences than Turkish.
Many
of
the
forms commonly used with children, such as those involving modals
or
questions,
essen."
are
("You must
gesehen?,"
("What
verb
eat
have
final.
your
you
e.g.,
"Du musst dein fruestuck
breakfast.");
seen?").
or
"Was hast
In Turkish,
du
sentences to
Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs
77
children
are often in OVS form, in which a nonfocused subject is
placed after the verb.
5
I thank Bambi Schieffelin for calling this
possibility
to
my attention.
Indeed,cross-cultural
comparisons of biological taxonomies
hierarchies
indicate considerable crosslinguistic overlap in the
(Berlin, Breedlove,
7
In
& Raven,
particular,
more
1973; Stross, 1973).
research
relation between motherese and
languages.
Patterns
needs
acquisition
of stress, deletion,
to
order
done on the
be
in
different
or repetition in the
input language to children may affect acquisition order, but more
data is required to decide.
press).
(However,
see Gleitman & Wanner,
in