LINGUISTICS--CHILDREN'S LEARNING OF WORDS

研究表明，在大约3岁时，学习英语的儿童在概括物体和物质标签时注意到本体论信息（例如，物体是有界的，具有刚性形状）；大约4岁时，他们注意到标签的句法上下文（质量或计数名词）。其他研究表明，很小的学习者在单词学习过程中可能会受到对标签的期望的引导。目前尚不清楚对本体论类型的关注是否受到这种期望的指导，如果是的话，这种期望是特定于语言的还是普遍的。本研究将运用跨语言的研究框架探讨幼儿对实体词和客体词的学习。它将研究对标签的期望是否会引导儿童早期的词汇学习，并研究他们在发展过程中的本质。最后，它将评估儿童在概括新标签时何时开始关注其他信息来源，如句法上下文。在实验1中，4到5岁的儿童和说西班牙语的成年人将接受标签任务（“这也是dax吗？”）和无标签任务（“这和这个一样吗？”）的测试。使用“是”或“否”的方法。在实验二中，2-1/2到3岁、3岁和4岁的儿童和说英语、汉语（普通话）和西班牙语的成人将被测试在一个标签上（“这是dax还是这是dax?”）无标签任务（“这个和这个一样吗，这个和这个一样吗？”）使用强制选择任务。在实验3中，会说英语的2-1/2到3岁的孩子和3- 4岁的孩子只会在标签任务中接受测试，标签将以计数或质量名词的形式呈现。我们预计，所有三种语言中最年轻的使用者可能会受到类似期望的引导，随后更多的语言特定期望将引导他们的注意力。通过对名词短语结构的分析，可以预期西班牙语和英语使用者在标注时注重本体论类型，而汉语使用者在标注时注重材料类型。在无标签任务中，我们也期望从年龄较大的儿童和成人那里获得语言特定的识解。总之，本研究将阐明通用语言机制如何与更多语言特异性机制相互作用，引导学习者注意刺激的不同方面，以及语言如何影响非语言任务。

Research has shown that by about 3-years of age, children learning English attend to ontological information (e.g., objects are bounded and have rigid shapes) when generalizing object and substance labels; by about 4-years they attend to the syntactic context (mass or count noun) of the label. Other research suggests that very young learners might be guided by expectations about labels during word learning. It is unclear whether attention to ontological kind is guided by such expectations, and if so, whether the expectations are language-specific or universal. The proposed research will investigate young children's learning of object and substance words using a cross-linguistic framework. It will examine whether expectations about labels guide children early in word learning and examine their nature over development. Finally it will assess when children start attending to other sources of information, such as the syntactic context, when generalizing novel labels. In Experiment 1, 4- to 5-year-olds and adult Spanish-speakers will be tested on a Label ("Is this also the dax?" and No-label task ("Is this the same as this?") using a "yes" or "no" method. In Experiment 2, 2-1/2- to 3-, 3- and4-year old-children and adult English-, Chinese (Mandarin)-, and Spanish-speakers will be tested on a Label ("Is this the dax or is this the dax?") and No-label task ("Is this the same as this or is this the same as this?") using a forced-choice task. In Experiment 3, English-speaking 2-1/2- to 3-year-olds and 3- to 4-year-olds will be tested only in a Label task, in which labels will be presented as either a count or mass noun. We expect that the youngest speakers of all 3 languages might be guided by similar expectations that subsequently more language-specific expectations will guide their attention. Based on an analysis of noun phrase structure, it is expected that Spanish- and English-speakers will attended to ontological kind, whereas Chinese-speakers will attend to material during labeling. We also expect to obtain language-specific construals from older children and adult s in the No-label task. In sum, the proposed research will clarify how universal language mechanisms interact with more language-specific mechanisms to guide learners' attention to different aspects of the stimulus and how language impacts non-linguistic tasks.