This paper studies aspects of the conceptual basis for language acquisition, with a focus on the perceptual-cognitive skills used to assign meanings to words. A first assumption is that the correspondence between adult and child perceptual features allows for early communication. Apparently, in the first year, naming is characterized by over-extension; this seems related to vocabulary growth. The role of perceptual information such as shape, movement, size, sound, taste, and texture is discussed. A second assumption, that the child has basic hypotheses about meaning that are negated by experience, is illustrated by studies on certain locative terms and adjective pairs. The conclusion is that conceptual factors, especially the interpretation of percepts, play a crucial role in language acquisition, and that early meanings can be accounted for in terms of hypotheses and the strategies derived from them. A final conclusion is that further study must be done on the relationship between cognitive-perceptual factors and other aspects of language acquisition, as well as on the relationship between general cognitive capacities and the ability to acquire language. (AM)