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Can English-learning toddlers acquire and generalize a novel spatial word?

Makeba Parramore Wilbourn

Sujin Yang

Cornell University

English-learning toddlers of 21 and 22 months were taught a novel spatial word for four actions resulting in a tight-fit spatial relation, a relation that is lexically marked in Korean but not English (Choi & Bowerman, 1991). Toddlers in a control condition viewed the same tight-fit action events without the novel word. Toddlers' comprehension of the novel word was tested in a preferential-looking paradigm. Across four videotaped pairs of action events, a tight-fit event was paired with a loose-fit event. Only toddlers who were taught the novel spatial word looked significantly longer at the tight-fit events during the test trials that presented the novel word than during control trials that presented neutral linguistic stimuli. The results indicate that toddlers can map and generalize a novel word onto actions resulting in a tight-fit relation, given limited experience with the novel word. The results provide insight into how young word learners begin to form language-specific semantic spatial categories.

Key Words: Language and cognition • language-specific semantic categories • spatial categorization • spatial language • word learning

First Language, Vol. 26, No. 2, 187-205 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0142723706060746


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