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Mapping Novel Nouns and Verbs Onto Dynamic Action Events: Are Verb Meanings Easier to Learn Than Noun Meanings for Japanese Children?
Author(s) -
Imai Mutsumi,
Haryu Etsuko,
Okada Hiroyuki
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2005.00849_a.x
Subject(s) - noun , verb , psychology , linguistics , action (physics) , language acquisition , mathematics education , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics
The present research examined how 3‐ and 5‐year‐old Japanese children map novel nouns and verbs onto dynamic action events and generalize them to new instances. Studies 1 to 3 demonstrated that although both 3‐ and 5‐year‐olds were able to map novel nouns onto novel objects, only 5‐year‐olds could generalize verbs solely on the basis of the sameness of the action. Study 4 showed that the difficulty young children experience in learning verbs lies mainly in mapping the appropriate element to a verb rather than in encoding and remembering an action itself. The results of this research are related to a long‐debated issue of whether noun learning is privileged over verb learning.