Discusses word familiarity, an attempt to measure the degree of importance people attribute to words, and its role in preparing a basic word-list for the teaching of English as a second or foreign language. Word familiarity ratings for 192 nouns are presented. (FB)

Mothers were found to respond differentially to their infants' object-related gestures. Pointing was found to have an especially strong correlation with mothers' object-labelling responses, which in turn were predictive of the child's object-naming vocabulary. (Author/JB)

Three experiments introduced 2- and 3-year-olds to novel adjectives either using full noun phrases and describing multiple familiar objects sharing a salient property or describing nouns of vague reference. Found that both groups mapped novel adjectives onto object properties when given taxonomically specific nouns with rich referential and…

This study reports data on form classes (e.g., nouns, verbs, modifiers) of the early vocabulary of an English-speaking boy with autism, to determine whether his language acquisition was referential or expressive. Results are compared with norms for normal and Down's syndrome populations. The predominance of nominals suggests a referential language…

Our research reflects the current trend to relate individual differences in second language learning to underlying cognitive processes e.g., Robinson, 2002. We believe that such investigations, apart from being of practical importance, can also shed light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying the language learning process. Here we focus on the…

The composition of young children's vocabularies in 7 contrasting linguistic communities was investigated. Mothers of 269 twenty-month-olds in Argentina, Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, the Republic of Korea, and the United States completed comparable vocabulary checklists for their children. In each language and vocabulary size grouping (except…

Proposes a system of classifying and forming words in French based on several major word "families" grouped according to their grammatical bases and the types of derivations emerging from them as an effective approach to vocabulary development. (MSE)

Examined young children's language productivity with newly learned forms by teaching them four new words: two nouns and two verbs. Findings indicate children combined the novel nouns productively with already known words much more often than they did the novel verbs--by many orders of magnitude and several children pluralized the new nouns,…

Two experiments with a total of 17 adolescents or adults with severe mental retardation evaluated the potential of exclusion procedures (selection of an undefined object in comparison with a defined object) as a means of training basic naming skills. Reliable exclusion and naming performance were demonstrated in nearly all subjects. (DB)

Two experiments examined toddlers' noun vocabularies and interpretations of names for solid and non-solid items. Results indicated that one side of the solidity-syntax-category organization mapping was favored. Seventeen- to 33-month olds do not systematically generalize names for solid things by shape similarity until they already know many…

Two experiments examined differences in the early noun learning of English- and Japanese-speaking children. Found that English-speaking children's vocabularies were heavily lopsided with many more object than animal names, whereas Japanese-speaking children's vocabularies were more evenly balanced. Results suggested that early learners of English…

Two hundred forty English-speaking toddlers (24- and 36-month-olds) heard novel adjectives applied to familiar objects (Experiment 1) and novel objects (Experiment 2). Children were successful in mapping adjectives to target properties only when information provided by the noun, in conjunction with participants' knowledge of the objects, provided…

This study investigated whether mothers' responses to their infants' gestures play a role in their infants' vocabulary development. Eight infants were observed interacting at home with their mothers on 2 occasions, when the infants were 10 to 12 months old, and 16 to 18 months old. Videotapes of the observations were transcribed and coded for…

Investigates the influence of the prefix "o-/ob-" on the choice of case for nominal objects of prefixed verbs, using a semantic field analysis. Focuses on four semantic functions: (1) objective; (2) locative; (3) factitive; and (4) comparative. The results are useful both to theoretical linguists and to teachers of Russian. (LMO)

This updated and expanded version of a 1991 book provides an account of the development of Spanish over the last 2,000 years. The six chapters include: (1) "Introduction" (e.g., Indo-European, Latin, and Romance); (2) "Phonology" (phonological change, transmission, suprasegmental features, development of the vowel system, development of the…