Abstract
In my contribution to this volume I would like to focus on the extension or the referential scope of the preschool child’s word concepts, a problem which is of relevance to both conceptual and semantic development. The research I will describe has been primarily concerned with the concepts underlying nouns which name objects, such as “dog”, “animal”, “flower”, “money”, etc. I shall attempt to draw some substantive conclusions about extensional aspects of such words for the preschool child, and also to indicate some of the methodological issues involved in research on this problem. In addition, I shall comment briefly on the possible implications which research on extension may have for conclusions regarding meaning or intension.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Anglin, J.M. (1977): Word, Object, and Conceptual Development (Norton, New York).
Anglin, J.M. (1978): From reference to meaning. Child Dev., 49, 969–976.
Anglin, J.M. (1979): “The Child’s First Terms of Reference”, in Symbolic Functioning in Childhood, ed. by N.R Smith, M.B. Franklin (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.).
Barrett, M.D. (1978): Lexical development and overextension in child language. J. Child Lang., 5, 205–219.
Bates, E. (1976): Language and Context (Academic, New York).
Benedict, H. (1979): Early lexical development: comprehension and production. J. Child Lang., 6, 183–200.
Bloom, L.M. (1973): One Word at a Time (Mouton, The Hague).
Bowerman, M.F. (1976): “Semantic Factors in the Acquisition of Rules for Word Use and Sentence Construction”, in Normal and Deficient Child Language, ed. by D.W. Morehead, A.E. Morehead (University Park Press, Baltimore).
Brown, R. (1958a): Words and Things (Free, Glencoe, IL.).
Brown, R. (1958b): How shall a thing be called? Psychol. Rev., 65, 14–21.
Carnap, R. (1947): Meaning and Necessity (University of Chicago Press, Chicago).
Chamberlain, A.F., Chamberlain, J. (1904a): Studies of a child I, Pedagog. Seminary, 11, 264–291.
Chamberlain, A.F., Chamberlain, J. (1904b): Studies of a child II, Pedagog. Seminary, 11, 452–483.
Clark, E.V. (1973): “What’s in a Word? On the Child’s Acquisition of Semantics in His First Language”, in Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language, ed. by T.E. Moore (Academic, New York).
Clark, E.V. (1975): “Knowledge, Context and Strategy in the Acquisition of Meaning”, in Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1975: Developmental Psycholinguistics, Theory and Applications, ed. by D.P. Dato (Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.).
Clark, E.V. (1978): Strategies for communicating. Child Dev., 49, 953–959.
Clark, E.V. (1979): “Building a Vocabulary: Words for Objects, Actions, and Relations”, in Studies in Language Acquisition, ed. by P. Fletcher, M. Garman (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
Clark, H.H., Clark, E.V. (1977): Psychology and Language (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York).
Fein, G. (1975): A transformational analysis of pretending. Dev. Psychol., 11, 291–296.
Frege, G. (1892): On sense and reference. Z. Philos., Philos. Kritik, 100, 25–50 (Reprinted in M. Black (1960): Translations from Philosophical Writings of G. Frege [Blackwell, Oxford]).
Fremgen, A., Fay, D. (1980): Overextensions in production and comprehension: A methodological clarification. J. Child Lang., 7, 205–211.
Goodman, N. (1972): “On Likeness of Meaning”, in Problems and Projects, ed. by N. Goodman (Bobbs-Merrill, New York).
Gruendel, J.M. (1977): Referential extension in early child language. Child Dev., 42, 1567–1576.
Huttenlocher, J. (1974): “The Origins of Language Comprehension”, in Theories in Cognitive Psychology, ed. by R.L. Solso (Erlbaum, Potomac).
Inhelder, B., Piaget, J. (1964): The Early Growth of Logic in the Child (Norton, New York).
Kay, D., Anglin, J.M. (1982): Overextension and underextension in the child’s expressive and receptive speech. J. Child Lang., 9, 83–98.
Kuczaj, S.A. (1979): “Young Children’s Overextensions of Object Words in Comprehension and/or Production: Support for a Prototype Theory of Early Word Meaning”, Society for Research in Child Development, San Francisco.
Leopold, W.F. (1939): Speech Development of a Bilingual Child: A Linguist’s Record, Vol. 1. Vocabulary Growth in the First Two Years (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL.).
Leopold, W.F. (1948): Semantic learning in infant language. Word, 4, 173–180.
Leopold, W.F. (1949): Speech Development of a Bilingual Child, Vol. 3. Grammar and General Problems in the First Two Years (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL.).
Lewis, M.M. (1959): How Children Learn to Speak (Basic, New York).
Macnamara, J. (1981): “Meaning: Getting the Theory Straight”, Workshop on Concept Development and the Development of Word Meaning, Institute of Psychology, University of Technology, Darmstadt.
Macnamara, J. (1982): Names for Things: A Study of Human Learning (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.).
Miller, G.A. (1978): The acquisition of word meaning. Child Dev., 49, 999–1004.
Miller, G.A., Johnson-Laird, P.N. (1976): Language and Perception (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.).
Moore, K.C. (1896): The mental development of the child. Psychol. Rev. Monogr. Suppl., 1.
Mulford, R. (1977): “Prototypicality and the Development of Categorization”, Boston University Conference on Language Development.
Nelson, K. (1974): Concept, word, and sentence: Interrelations in acquisition and development. Psychol. Rev., 81, 267–285.
Nelson, K., Rescorla, L., Gruendel, J., Benedict, H. (1978): Early lexicons: What do they mean? Child Dev., 49, 960–968.
Palermo, D.S. (1978): “Language Acquisition: Semantic Development”, in Psychology of Language, ed. by D.S. Palermo (Scott, Foresman, Glenview, IL.).
Piaget, J. (1962): Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood (Norton, New York).
Putnam, H. (1975): “The meaning of ‘meaning’”, in Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol 7, ed. by K. Gunderson (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis).
Quine, W.V.O. (1953): “The Problem of Meaning in Linguistics”, in From a Logical Point of View, ed. by W.V.O. Quine (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.).
Reich, P.A. (1976): The early acquisition of word meaning. J. Child Lang., 3, 117–123.
Rescorla, L. (1980): Overextension in early language development. J. Child Lang., 7, 321–335.
Rosch, E. (1973): “On the Internal Structure of Perceptual and Semantic Categories”, in Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language, ed. by T.E. Moore (Academic, New York).
Rosch, E. (1978): “Principles of Categorization”, in Cognition and Categorization, ed. by E. Rosch, B. Lloyd (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.).
Rubin, K.H., Fein, G., Vandenberg, B. (in press): “Play”, in Carmichael’ s Manual of Child Psychology: Social Development, ed. by E.M. Hetherinqton (Wiley, New York).
Saltz, E. (1971): The Cognitive Bases of Human Learning (Dorsey, Homewood, IL.).
Saltz, E., Dixon, D., Klein, S., Becker, G. (1977): Studies of natural language concepts. III. Concept overdiscrimination in comprehension between two and four years of age. Child Dev., 48, 1682–1685.
Smith, E.E., Medin, D.L. (1981): Categories and Concepts (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.).
Smith, E.E., Shoben, E.J., Rips, L.J. (1974): Structure and process in semantic memory: A featural model for semantic decisions. Psychol. Rev., 81, 214–241.
Stern, W. (1930): Psychology of Early Childhood up to the Sixth Year of Aqe (Holt, New York).
Thomson, J.R., Chapman, R.S. (1977): Who is ‘Daddy’ revisited: The status of two-year-olds’ overextended words in use and comprehension. J. Child Lanq., 4, 359–375.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1962): Thought and Language (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.).
Werner, H. (1948): Comparative Psychology of Mental Development (International Universities Press, New York).
Werner, H., Kaplan, B. (1963): Symbol Formation (Wiley, New York).
White, T.G. (1982): Naming practices, typicality, and underextension in child language. J. Exp. Child Psychol., 33, 324–346.
Winner, E. (1979): New names for old things: The emergence of metaphoric language. J. Child Lang., 6, 469–491.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1983 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Anglin, J.M. (1983). Extensional Aspects of the Preschool Child’s Word Concepts. In: Seiler, T.B., Wannenmacher, W. (eds) Concept Development and the Development of Word Meaning. Springer Series in Language and Communication, vol 12. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69000-6_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69000-6_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-69002-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-69000-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive