Compared the proportions of nouns and verbs in early vocabularies of English- and Mandarin-speaking toddlers and their mothers. Found that Mandarin-speaking children had relatively fewer nouns and more verbs than English-speaking children. When reading books, children's vocabularies were dominated by nouns but not when playing with toys. Mothers…

This study investigated the use of generic noun phrases by preschool children and their mothers. Results indicate striking differences in the way generics and non-generics are distributed in the speech of both groups, suggesting generic noun phrases differ in their semantics and conceptual organization from non-generics and may reflect children's…