'Sneak-shoes', 'sworders' and 'nose-beards': a case study of lexical innovation

Abstract

Children often invent new words to express meanings for which they have learned no words or cannot recall conventional words. They do not do so randomly, but appear to utilize their knowledge of word-formation devices. The present study investigated the development of spontaneous lexical innovations during the preschool years. Instances of lexical innovations were identified in transcripts of 210 naturalistic conversations between an American English-speaking boy (2;4 through 5;0) and his parents. The boy's innovations generally support and extend Clark's findings regarding categories of innovations and provide some support for her developmental predictions based on the principle of simplicity. Many usages seem to be based on common, productive word-formation devices in English, particularly compounding, whereas others appear to be based on novel rules and language play. Various influences on the development of lexical innovation are discussed.

Clausal order and the acquisition of Dutch deverbal compounds

“…There has been some debate as to whether children necessarily pass through stage 2 (i.e., whether they produce ungrammatical compounds like break bottle), as no such forms appeared in the spontaneous conversations of a child recorded longitudinally between the ages of 2 and 5 years (Becker 1994). However, stage 2 errors do appear consistently in experimental elicitation paradigms (Clark et al, 1986;Nicoladis 2003a), as well as in diary data (Nicoladis 2005).…”

“…Children sometimes coin novel terms to refer either to known concepts, such as nose beard to refer to a mustache (Becker 1994), or to novel concepts, such as apple juice chair to refer to the chair close to the apple juice (Downing 1977; see also Clark 1981). The novel terms usually rely on word formation structures allowed in children's native language(s).…”

Large constituent families help children parse compounds

“…In languages in which compounding is highly productive, like English, Swedish, and Dutch, children start to coin novel noun-noun compounds such as nose-beards to refer to moustaches (Clark, 1993 ;Becker, 1994). In languages in which compounding is highly productive, like English, Swedish, and Dutch, children start to coin novel noun-noun compounds such as nose-beards to refer to moustaches (Clark, 1993 ;Becker, 1994).…”

The Acquisition of Complex Deverbal Words by a French-English Bilingual Child

“…Pointing out that the series of stages proposed by Clark and her colleagues was based on cross-sectional data, Becker (1994) analyzed longitudinal data of regularly recorded conversations of one boy's lexical innovations between ages 2 and 5 years. This boy produced no examples of Clark and her colleagues' proposed Stage 2 discussed above; otherwise the developmental order followed Clark's stages.…”

“…However, the child in Becker's (1994) longitudinal analysis of transcribed conversations did not use any Stage 2 forms. It is possible that Stage 2 forms are only rarely produced.…”