Children's Understanding of the Referential Properties of Collective and Class Nouns

Abstract

SMITH, LINDA B., and RIzzo, THOMAS A. Children's Understanding of the Referential Properties of Collective and Class Nouns. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 245-257. Preschool and kindergarten age children's understanding of the distinct referential properties of collective and class nouns and the relationship between this understanding and performance in part-whole comparison tasks was examined in 3 experiments. The results of these experiments show that young children have a fine understanding of the relationship between nouns and the sets to which they refer. Specifically, children understand the hierarchical structure of class nouns and thus know that a superordinate class noun that correctly labels a set also correctly labels any included subset. Children also understand the part-whole structure underlying collective nouns and thus know that a collective noun that labels some set may not label a portion of that set. This knowledge was evident in children's judgments of the application of collective and class nouns and in their ability to define the 2 types of nouns differently. This knowledge appears to be a major factor in children's failures in traditional class-inclusion tasks and success in such tasks when a superordinate class noun is replaced by a collective noun. Children misinterpret class nouns as referring to included subclasses because they know class nouns refer to included subclasses. Children do not misinterpret collective nouns because they know collective nouns refer to entire sets. Finally, young children can make part-whole comparisons both when the whole is designated by a class noun and when it is designated by a collective noun. When the intended meaning of class nouns was clear, the children compared classes and subclasses as well as they compared collections and portions of collections.