Individuals and kinds in language and cognitiion

认知科学的一个主要目标是描述我们用来推理和谈论世界上事物的概念。这一目标提出了一个重大挑战，至少部分原因是我们的概念能力具有巨大的灵活性。这种灵活性在我们可以将任何物理对象（如狗）解释为一种实例（如狗）或作为一个独特的个体（如Fido）这一事实中尤为明显。人类语言反映了这种区别，有一些表达可以用来将对象指定为类成员（例如，计数名词，cn，如“狗”），还有一些表达可以用来将它们标记为特定的个体（例如，专有名词，pn，如“Fido”）。类概念（和神经网络）在人类认知（和语言）中发挥着核心作用，因为它们支持我们对物体与同类任何其他成员共享的属性进行有力推断的能力。个体概念（和PNs）也是人类思考（和说话）的基础，因为它们是我们将一个对象想象为一个独特实体的能力的基础，有别于所有其他同类实例。尽管“类”和“个体”的概念对于我们思考和谈论物体都是至关重要的，但很少有研究试图理解它们的起源、性质和相互关系。本研究旨在通过探索(1)婴儿期和幼儿期PNs和CNs的学习，以及(2)个体和种类概念的相应发展来实现这一认识。提出了四组实验。前两组解决了语言习得研究中的一个深层谜团：婴儿何时以及如何从词汇类别，PN和CN中学习单词的语言特性？第三组调查儿童早期灵活推理物理对象的能力，无论是作为个体还是作为种类的实例。第四组旨在明确幼儿个体概念与类概念之间的关系。总的来说，计划中的实验将在促进我们对语言和认知基础的两种概念（善良和个人）的理解方面发挥重要作用。

A primary goal of cognitive science is to characterize the concepts in terms of which we reason and talk about things in the world. This goal presents a major challenge, at least in part because of the enormous flexibility of our conceptual capacities. This flexibility is notably evident in the fact that we may construe any physical object (e.g., a dog) either as an instance of a kind (e.g., dog) or as a unique individual (e.g., Fido). Human languages reflect this distinction, having some expressions that may be used to designate objects as kind members (e.g., count nouns, CNs, like "dog") and others that may be used to label them as specific individuals (e.g., proper names, PNs, like "Fido"). Kind concepts (and CNs) play a central role in human cognition (and language), because they support our ability to draw powerful inferences about properties that an object shares with any other member of the kind. Individual concepts (and PNs) are also foundational to human thinking (and speaking), because they underlie our capacity to conceive of an object as a unique entity, distinct from all other instances of the kind. Although the notions of kind and individual are both essential to how we think and talk about objects, little work has sought to understand their origin, nature, and inter-relations. The proposed research aims to achieve this understanding, by exploring (1) the learning of PNs and CNs in infancy and early childhood, and (2) the corresponding development of concepts of individuals and kinds. Four sets of experiments are proposed. The first two sets address a deep mystery in the study of language acquisition: When and how do infants learn the linguistic properties of words from the lexical categories, PN and CN? The third set investigates children's early capacity to reason flexibly about physical objects either as individuals or as instances of kinds. The fourth set aims to specify the relation between concepts of individuals and concepts of kinds for young children. Taken together, the planned experiments will play an important role in advancing our understanding of two types of concepts (kind and individual) that are foundational in language and cognition.