In the novel noun generalization task, 2 1/2-year-old children display generalized expectations about how solid and nonsolid things are named, extending names for never-before-encountered solids by shape and for never-before-encountered nonsolids by material.This distinction between solids and nonsolids has been interpreted in terms of an ontological distinction between objects and substances.Nine simulations and behavioral experiments tested the hypothesis that these expectations arise from the correlations characterizing early learned noun categories.In the simulation studies, connectionist networks were trained on noun vocabularies modeled after those of children.These networks formed generalized expectations about solids and nonsolids that match children’s performances in the novel noun generalization task in the very different languages of English and Japanese.The simulations also generate new predictions supported by new experiments with children.Implications are discussed in terms of children’s development of distinctions between kinds of categories and in terms of the nature of this knowledge. Concepts are hypothetical constructs, theoretical devices hypothesized to explain data, what people do, and what people say. The question of whether a particular theory can explain children’s concepts is therefore semantically strange because strictly speaking this question asks about an explanation of an explanation.We begin with this reminder because the goal of the research reported here is to understand the role of associative processes in children’s systematic attention to the shape of solid things and to the material of nonsolid things in the task of forming new lexical categories. These attentional biases have been interpreted in terms of children’s concepts about the ontological kinds of object and substance

Previous research has shown that children go through a stage in which they know that the number words each refer to a distinct numerosity, yet do not know which numerosity each number word picks out (Wynn, 1992). How do children attain this level of knowledge? We explore the possibility that particular properties of how number words are used within sentences inform children of the semantic class to which they belong. An analysis of transcripts of the spontaneous speech of three one- and two-year-old children and their parents (from the CHILDES database; MacWhinney & Snow, 1990) suggests that the relevant cues are available as input in parents ’ speech to children, and that children generally honour these properties of number words in their own speech. Implications of this proposal for word learning more generally are discussed.

Three experiments explored the semantics of the mass-count distinction in young children and adults. In Experiments 1 and 2, the quantity judgments of participants provided evidence that some mass nouns refer to individuals, as such. Participants judged one large portion of stuff to be "more" than three tiny portions for substance-mass nouns (e.g. mustard, ketchup), but chose according to number for count nouns (e.g. shoes, candles) and object-mass nouns (e.g. furniture, jewelry). These results suggest that some mass nouns quantify over individuals, and that therefore reference to individuals does not distinguish count nouns from mass nouns. Thus, Experiments 1 and 2 failed to support the hypothesis that there exist one-to-one mappings between mass-count syntax and semantics for either adults or young children. In Experiment 3, it was found that for mass-count flexible terms (e.g. string, stone) participants based quantity judgments on number when the terms were used with count syntax, but on total amount of stuff when used with mass syntax. Apparently, the presence of discrete physical objects in a scene (e.g. stones) is not sufficient to permit quantity judgments based on number. It is proposed that object-mass nouns (e.g. furniture) can be used to refer to individuals due to lexically specified grammatical features that normally occur in count syntax. Also, we suggest that children learning language parse words that refer to individuals as count nouns unless given morpho-syntactic and referential evidence to the contrary, in which case object-mass nouns are acquired.

this paper, making use of minimalist ideas concerning the feature specification of nouns and adopting Chierchia's Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia, 1998), I will discuss the acquisition of definite articles in Modern Greek (MG) from a rather different perspective, one which is based on the idea that the syntax-semantics mapping in the nominal system is not cross-linguistically uniform. Total and partial omission of definite articles does not pose a problem for this analysis. In contrast, this model predicts that children learning Germanic, Romance languages and MG will pass through a stage of optional use of definite articles

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This paper explores the properties of mass and count nouns in child language. Results from experimental research with English speaking children are compared with an analysis of the spontaneous speech production of Italian-speaking children. It is argued that children exposed to Italian and English as young as two know that the target grammar distinguishes between count and mass nouns. Their knowledge however is not fully adultlike: nouns still have to be classified as mass or count. In the classification process, distribution plays a major role. Syntactic properties guide the child in classifying nouns as mass or count. Semantic and perceptual properties play a minor role but can be used by the child in absence of distributional evidence.

Various theories propose that count nouns are distinguished from mass nouns by their specification of individuation. We present evidence that, while 3-year-old children acquiring language extend words differentially on the basis of masscount syntax, they quantify over individuals for both novel mass and count nouns. We suggest that children may begin acquisition with an underspecified representation of mass noun semantics, permitting quantification over both individuals and continuous quantities. Also, children may rely on ontologically based biases to guide quantification.