Emergence and elaboration of word-learning mechanisms in children

在建立有效的单词学习系统的过程中，学龄前婴儿学习使用虚词（日语中的语法助词），以便从流利的言语中分割单词并对这些单词进行语法分类。我们还发现，孩子们在整个学前阶段继续精心设计单词学习系统，这样他们不仅能够快速绘制物体标签，还能快速绘制动词、形容词和拟声词。

On the process of establishing an efficient word-learning system, preverbal infants learn to use function words (‘zyosi’, grammatical particles in Japanese) in order to segment words from fluent speech and to grammatically categorize those words. We also found that children continue to elaborate the word-learning system throughout preschool years so that they become able to fast-map not only object labels, but also verbs, adjectives, and onomatopoetic words.