Bootstrapping the early lexicon: how do children use old knowledge to create new meanings?

Emily Mather

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00096

Abstract

OPINION article Front. Psychol., 04 March 2013Sec. Developmental Psychology Volume 4 - 2013 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00096

Highlights

Compared to other aspects of language development, such as acquiring grammar, we perhaps take for granted the complexity of building a lexicon
Quine (1960) argues that when we hear a new word, how can we ever precisely determine its meaning? This problem has concerned many child language researchers, who all acknowledge that the child requires a means of narrowing down the infinite possible meanings of a word
Is there a role for object names? While there is a growing body of evidence for the effects of novelty on word learning, it is not yet clear that object novelty alone can account for the mutual exclusivity response

Summary

Introduction

Compared to other aspects of language development, such as acquiring grammar, we perhaps take for granted the complexity of building a lexicon. There is a small, but growing body of evidence suggesting that object novelty does influence the mutual exclusivity response. A more mechanistic account of mutual exclusivity is possible if we draw upon what we already understand about learning, memory, and attention.

Results

Conclusion