Abstract
Much research has asked why verbs are difficult to acquire, and how toddlers nevertheless acquire them. Still, we know little about what kinds of verb meanings are easy or difficult to acquire. We revisit Rescorla and colleagues’ data on vocabulary knowledge in toddlers acquiring English, Italian, Greek, Korean, and Portuguese measured using the Language Development Survey. We coded the survey’s verbs for several semantic features to determine which features predict appearance in toddlers’ vocabularies. For English, manner and result verbs were equally well known across samples, but verbs labeling durative events and events with fewer event participants were more likely to be known than those labeling punctual events and events involving more participants. Similar trends held in the other languages.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Trends in Language Acquisition Research |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| Pages | 67-92 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| Volume | 24 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2018 |
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Keywords
- Cross-linguistic
- Language development survey
- Lexical semantics
- Verb learning
- Verbs
- Vocabulary composition
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Linguistics and Language
- Cultural Studies
- Communication
Cite this
Semantic features of early verb vocabularies. / Horvath, Sabrina; Rescorla, Leslie; Arunachalam, Sudha.
Trends in Language Acquisition Research. Vol. 24 John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2018. p. 67-92.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Semantic features of early verb vocabularies
AU - Horvath, Sabrina
AU - Rescorla, Leslie
AU - Arunachalam, Sudha
PY - 2018/1/1
Y1 - 2018/1/1
N2 - Much research has asked why verbs are difficult to acquire, and how toddlers nevertheless acquire them. Still, we know little about what kinds of verb meanings are easy or difficult to acquire. We revisit Rescorla and colleagues’ data on vocabulary knowledge in toddlers acquiring English, Italian, Greek, Korean, and Portuguese measured using the Language Development Survey. We coded the survey’s verbs for several semantic features to determine which features predict appearance in toddlers’ vocabularies. For English, manner and result verbs were equally well known across samples, but verbs labeling durative events and events with fewer event participants were more likely to be known than those labeling punctual events and events involving more participants. Similar trends held in the other languages.
AB - Much research has asked why verbs are difficult to acquire, and how toddlers nevertheless acquire them. Still, we know little about what kinds of verb meanings are easy or difficult to acquire. We revisit Rescorla and colleagues’ data on vocabulary knowledge in toddlers acquiring English, Italian, Greek, Korean, and Portuguese measured using the Language Development Survey. We coded the survey’s verbs for several semantic features to determine which features predict appearance in toddlers’ vocabularies. For English, manner and result verbs were equally well known across samples, but verbs labeling durative events and events with fewer event participants were more likely to be known than those labeling punctual events and events involving more participants. Similar trends held in the other languages.
KW - Cross-linguistic
KW - Language development survey
KW - Lexical semantics
KW - Verb learning
KW - Verbs
KW - Vocabulary composition
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85058563262&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85058563262&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1075/tilar.24.04hor
DO - 10.1075/tilar.24.04hor
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85058563262
VL - 24
SP - 67
EP - 92
BT - Trends in Language Acquisition Research
PB - John Benjamins Publishing Company
ER -