Word learning does not end at fast-mapping: Evolution of verb meanings through reorganization of an entire semantic domain
Word learning does not end at fast-mapping: Evolution of verb meanings through reorganization of an entire semantic domain
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cognition.2010.09.007
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发表时间：
2011-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
Noburo Saji;M. Imai;Henrik Saalbach;Yuping Zhang;H. Shu;Hiroyuki Okada
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Noburo Saji;M. Imai;Henrik Saalbach;Yuping Zhang;H. Shu;Hiroyuki Okada
本文探讨了儿童对同一语义域动词之间关系的梳理过程。使用一组表示一系列动作事件的汉语动词作为测试案例，我们研究了3岁、5岁和7岁的汉语儿童和成年人如何将13个不同的动词应用于一系列携带/持有事件。我们询问了学习汉语的儿童最初是如何划分和标记该领域的语义空间的，他们是如何发现不同词语之间的界限的，以及该领域中动词的意义作为一个整体是如何向成人的表征演变的。我们还讨论了什么因素使动词意义习得容易或困难的问题。结果表明，儿童的动词使用模式与成人有很大的不同，儿童需要很长时间才能像成人一样使用该领域的所有动词。我们还发现，儿童最早开始使用广泛覆盖和频繁的动词，但这些动词的使用倾向于收敛到成人使用更慢，因为儿童不能使用这些动词，因为成年人，直到他们确定了这些动词和其他近义词之间的界限，更具体的含义。这项研究强调了系统研究属于同一领域的词作为一个整体的重要性，研究一个领域中的词义是如何作为一个连接系统的一部分发展的，而不是单独研究每个词：学习一个动词的含义会引起相关的，相邻的动词的含义的重组。
This paper explores the process through which children sort out the relations among verbs belonging to the same semantic domain. Using a set of Chinese verbs denoting a range of action events that are labeled by carrying or holding in English as a test case, we looked at how Chinese-speaking 3-, 5-, and 7-year-olds and adults apply 13 different verbs to a range of carrying/holding events. We asked how children learning Chinese originally divide and label the semantic space in this domain, how they discover the boundaries between different words, and how the meanings of verbs in the domain as a whole evolve toward the representations of adults. We also addressed the question of what factors make verb meaning acquisition easy or hard. Results showed that the pattern of children’s verb use is largely different from that of adults and that it takes a long time for children to be able to use all verbs in this domain in the way adults do. We also found that children start to use broad-covering and frequent verbs the earliest, but use of these verbs tends to converge on adult use more slowly because children could not use these verbs as adults did until they had identified boundaries between these verbs and other near-synonyms with more specific meanings. This research highlights the importance of systematic investigation of words that belong to the same domain as a whole, examining how word meanings in a domain develop as parts of a connected system, instead of examining each word on its own: learning the meaning of a verb invites restructuring of the meanings of related, neighboring verbs.