How the parts relate to the whole: Frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel compounds

Krott, Andrea; Gagné, Christina L.; Nicoladis, Elena

doi:10.1017/s030500090800888x

Cited by 33 publications

(42 citation statements)

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“…Table 2 provides an overview of the relations occurring in compounds produced by children and adults, together with their percentage within the compound vocabularies at different ages. The distributions of relations are very similar to that of all British-English transcripts in CHILDES, as presented in Krott et al (2009), and do not differ much between the different age groups. The distributions are very skewed, with a few relations making up the majority of compounds, among which are the relations of interest, i.e.…”

Section: G E N E R a L Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

“…In addition, responses did not require many metalinguistic skills, which means there was no reason to avoid the more difficult to explain FOR relations. Finally, we used compounds composed of novel words rather than compounds composed of existing words (as in Krott et al, 2009). Our finding therefore shows that in these circumstances five-year-olds do not exhibit a HAS/LOCATED bias.…”

Section: G E N E R a L Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because the present study required little or no metalinguistic skills, and because both options were made equally available, five-year-olds were expected to show a much weaker bias towards HAS/LOCATED or no bias at all. Adults did not show a preference for HAS/LOCATED in the explanation task in Krott et al (2009). It is not unusual for novel compounds to have both a HAS or LOCATED interpretation and a FOR interpretation (e.g.…”

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confidence: 86%

“…These findings are especially remarkable because the FOR relation appears to be the dominant relation in children's compound vocabulary. An investigation (Krott et al, 2009) of all 629 noun-noun compounds occurring in all types of transcripts of all British children in the CHILDES database (MacWhinney, 2000) revealed that about 40 % of these compounds contain a FOR relation, while HAS and LOCATED each occur in less than 10% of the compounds (for more details see Krott et al, 2009). If this estimate correctly reflects children's compound vocabulary and children's understanding of relations in novel compounds was primarily based on how often compounds embodying that relation are encountered, then they should have rather overused than underused the FOR relation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Children's preference for HAS and LOCATED relations: A word learning bias for noun–noun compounds

2009

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A B S T R A C TThe present study investigates children's bias when interpreting novel noun-noun compounds (e.g. kig donka) that refer to combinations of novel objects (kig and donka). More specifically, it investigates children's understanding of modifier-head relations of the compounds and their preference for HAS or LOCATED relations (e.g. a donka that HAS a kig or a donka that is LOCATED near a kig) rather than a FOR relation (e.g. a donka that is used FOR kigs). In a forced-choice paradigm, two-and three-year-olds preferred interpretations with HAS/LOCATED relations, while five-year-olds and adults showed no preference for either interpretation. We discuss possible explanations for this preference and its relation to another word learning bias that is based on perceptual features of the referent objects, i.e. the shape bias. We argue that children initially focus on a perceptual stability rather than a pure conceptual stability when interpreting the meaning of nouns.

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Section: G E N E R a L Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Section: G E N E R a L Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 86%

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confidence: 99%

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Children's preference for HAS and LOCATED relations: A word learning bias for noun–noun compounds

2009

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“…Ease of processing is assumed to be affected by the experience the speaker has with the compound, including its relational structure, and with the relations that the constituents of the compound, particularly the modifier, typically engage in. This model has also been used in studies of normally developing children's acquisition of compounds (Krott, Gagné, and Nicoladis, 2009;, but to our knowledge not in studies of speakers with aphasia.…”

Section: Why Study Compounds?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Compound nouns in spoken language production by speakers with aphasia compared to neurologically healthy speakers: An exploratory study

Eiesland

Lind

2011

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics

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Compounds are words that are made up of at least two other words (lexemes), featuring lexical and syntactic characteristics and thus particularly interesting for the study of language processing. Most studies of compounds and language processing have been based on data from experimental single word production and comprehension tasks. To enhance the ecological validity of morphological processing research, data from other contexts, such as discourse production, need to be considered. This study investigates the production of nominal compounds in semi-spontaneous spoken texts by a group of speakers with fluent types of aphasia compared to a group of neurologically healthy speakers. The speakers with aphasia produce significantly fewer nominal compound types in their texts than the non-aphasic speakers, and the compounds they produce exhibit fewer different types of semantic relations than the compounds produced by the non-aphasic speakers. The results are discussed in relation to theories of language processing.

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A ladybug bear can fly and climb trees: Children prefer conjunctions of labels and properties for cross‐classifiable toys

Nguyen

Girgis

Knopp

2019

Infant and Child Development

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The present studies (N = 159) investigated children's and adults' preferences for label and property conjunctions for cross‐classifiable toys. In Study 1, 4‐year‐olds, 5‐year‐olds, and adults participated in a labelling and property attribution task involving experimental toys that belong to two categories and control toys that belong to only one category. In Study 2, the same age groups were tested on a version of the task focusing on the control toys. In Study 3, 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds were tested on a modified version of the labelling and property attribution task involving the experimental and control toys. Finally, Study 4 tested a younger age group, 3‐year‐olds. Overall, the results indicated that by age 3 years, individuals prefer assigning experimental toys (but not controls) with joint labels that are a conjunction of two single category labels. By age 4 years, individuals prefer assigning experimental toys (but not controls) with dual properties that are a conjunction of two single properties. These results document the development of how different types of toys elicit preferences for conjunctions of labels that denote membership in two distinct categories and conjunctions of properties that combine features of these categories. Highlights This study examines children's preferences in labeling and attributing properties to cross-classifiable toys. Children labeled and attributed properties to toys that belonged to two categories (experimental) and one category (control). The results reveal that by 4 years, children prefer both label and property conjunctions for the experimental toys that can be cross‐classified into more than one category, but not for the control toys.

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How the parts relate to the whole: Frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel compounds

Cited by 33 publications

References 40 publications

Children's preference for HAS and LOCATED relations: A word learning bias for noun–noun compounds

Children's preference for HAS and LOCATED relations: A word learning bias for noun–noun compounds

Compound nouns in spoken language production by speakers with aphasia compared to neurologically healthy speakers: An exploratory study

A ladybug bear can fly and climb trees: Children prefer conjunctions of labels and properties for cross‐classifiable toys

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