Origins of Children's Semantic Categories of Spatial Relations: A Cross-Linguistic Study of English, Korean and Dutch

摘要 根据目前一个有影响力的观点，儿童开始 将语言形式映射到概念的语言习得 先前通过非语言认知 发展 该项目将通过以下方式评估这一假设： 拓扑的早期语义分类 空间动作（例如，PUT IN/ON）由孩子们学习英语， 韩国和荷兰 这些语言将空间动作分类为 为了语言表达的目的，有着惊人的不同方式。 然而，在某种程度上，儿童依赖于非语言的 概念，而不是分析语言输入， 词的空间语义范畴应该是 相似，或者至少不应该有系统的不同， 语言。 将进行两项横断面研究 每种语言有80名儿童（年龄范围1岁;0-3岁;6岁）。 在 生产实验，鼓励孩子们告诉 实验者如何在空间上安排物体。 的理解 研究评估了对特定语言语义的敏感性 与“偏好观察范式”的区别。 数据 将分析（1），以确定如何早期儿童学习 每一种语言都发展出特定于语言的原则， 分类空间行动，（2）评估，通过 分析正确和不正确的概括模式， 相对困难的儿童的替代原则， 空间分类 我们的结论应该使我们能够 比现在更准确地描述了 在早期语言习得中， 非语言分类倾向与儿童的 对输入语言的语义类别的敏感性。

ABSTRACT According to a currently influential view, children begin language acquisition by mapping linguistic forms onto concepts previously established through nonlinguistic cognitive development. The project will evaluate this hypothesis by comparing the early semantic categorization of topological spatial actions (e.g., PUT IN/ON) by children learning English, Korean, and Dutch. These languages classify spatial actions in strikingly different ways for purposes of linguistic expression. However, to the extent that children rely on nonlinguistic concepts rather than analysis of the linguistic input for the meanings of words, their spatial semantic categories should be similar, or at least should not differ systematically according to language. Two cross-sectional studies will be carried out with 80 children in each language (age range 1;0-3;6). In the production experiment, children are encouraged to tell the experimenter how to spatially arrange objects. The comprehension study assesses sensitivity to language-specific semantic distinctions with the "preferential looking paradigm". The data will be analyzed (1) to determine how early children learning each language develop language-specific principles of categorizing spatial actions, and (2) to aassess, through analysis of correct and incorrect patterns of generalizations, the relative difficulty for children of alternative principles of spatial classification. Our conclusions should enable us to characterize more precisely than is now possible the nature of the interaction in early language acquisition between nonlinguistic categorization predispositions and children's sensitivity to the semantic categories of the input language.