@Article{Gillette1999,
  author   = {J Gillette and Henry Gleitman and Lila R Gleitman and A Lederer},
  journal  = {Cognition},
  title    = {Human simulations of vocabulary learning.},
  year     = {1999},
  number   = {2},
  pages    = {135-76},
  volume   = {73},
  abstract = {The work reported here experimentally investigates a striking generalization
	about vocabulary acquisition: Noun learning is superior to verb learning
	in the earliest moments of child language development. The dominant
	explanation of this phenomenon in the literature invokes differing
	conceptual requirements for items in these lexical categories: Verbs
	are cognitively more complex than nouns and so their acquisition
	must await certain mental developments in the infant. In the present
	work, we investigate an alternative hypothesis; namely, that it is
	the information requirements of verb learning, not the conceptual
	requirements, that crucially determine the acquisition order. Efficient
	verb learning requires access to structural features of the exposure
	language and thus cannot take place until a scaffolding of noun knowledge
	enables the acquisition of clause-level syntax. More generally, we
	experimentally investigate the hypothesis that vocabulary acquisition
	takes place via an incremental constraint-satisfaction procedure
	that bootstraps itself into successively more sophisticated linguistic
	representations which, in turn, enable new kinds of vocabulary learning.
	If the experimental subjects were young children, it would be difficult
	to distinguish between this information-centered hypothesis and the
	conceptual change hypothesis. Therefore the experimental "learners"
	are adults. The items to be "acquired" in the experiments were the
	24 most frequent nouns and 24 most frequent verbs from a sample of
	maternal speech to 18-24-month-old infants. The various experiments
	ask about the kinds of information that will support identification
	of these words as they occur in mother-to-child discourse. Both the
	proportion correctly identified and the type of word that is identifiable
	changes significantly as a function of information type. We discuss
	these results as consistent with the incremental construction of
	a highly lexicalized grammar by cognitively and pragmatically sophisticated
	human infants, but inconsistent with a procedure in which lexical
	acquisition is independent of and antecedent to syntax acquisition.},
  keywords = {Adult, Female, Human, Infant, Language Development, Male, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Speech Perception, Support, Non-U.S. Gov, ', t, U.S. Gov, Non-P.H.S., Verbal Learning, Vocabulary, 10580161},
}

{"_id":"ASDz4My9KK8j4JZ2J","bibbaseid":"gillette-gleitman-gleitman-lederer-humansimulationsofvocabularylearning-1999","author_short":["Gillette, J","Gleitman, H.","Gleitman, L. R","Lederer, A"],"bibdata":{"bibtype":"article","type":"article","author":[{"firstnames":["J"],"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Gillette"],"suffixes":[]},{"firstnames":["Henry"],"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Gleitman"],"suffixes":[]},{"firstnames":["Lila","R"],"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Gleitman"],"suffixes":[]},{"firstnames":["A"],"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Lederer"],"suffixes":[]}],"journal":"Cognition","title":"Human simulations of vocabulary learning.","year":"1999","number":"2","pages":"135-76","volume":"73","abstract":"The work reported here experimentally investigates a striking generalization about vocabulary acquisition: Noun learning is superior to verb learning in the earliest moments of child language development. The dominant explanation of this phenomenon in the literature invokes differing conceptual requirements for items in these lexical categories: Verbs are cognitively more complex than nouns and so their acquisition must await certain mental developments in the infant. In the present work, we investigate an alternative hypothesis; namely, that it is the information requirements of verb learning, not the conceptual requirements, that crucially determine the acquisition order. Efficient verb learning requires access to structural features of the exposure language and thus cannot take place until a scaffolding of noun knowledge enables the acquisition of clause-level syntax. More generally, we experimentally investigate the hypothesis that vocabulary acquisition takes place via an incremental constraint-satisfaction procedure that bootstraps itself into successively more sophisticated linguistic representations which, in turn, enable new kinds of vocabulary learning. If the experimental subjects were young children, it would be difficult to distinguish between this information-centered hypothesis and the conceptual change hypothesis. Therefore the experimental \"learners\" are adults. The items to be \"acquired\" in the experiments were the 24 most frequent nouns and 24 most frequent verbs from a sample of maternal speech to 18-24-month-old infants. The various experiments ask about the kinds of information that will support identification of these words as they occur in mother-to-child discourse. Both the proportion correctly identified and the type of word that is identifiable changes significantly as a function of information type. We discuss these results as consistent with the incremental construction of a highly lexicalized grammar by cognitively and pragmatically sophisticated human infants, but inconsistent with a procedure in which lexical acquisition is independent of and antecedent to syntax acquisition.","keywords":"Adult, Female, Human, Infant, Language Development, Male, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Speech Perception, Support, Non-U.S. Gov, ', t, U.S. Gov, Non-P.H.S., Verbal Learning, Vocabulary, 10580161","bibtex":"@Article{Gillette1999,\n author = {J Gillette and Henry Gleitman and Lila R Gleitman and A Lederer},\n journal = {Cognition},\n title = {Human simulations of vocabulary learning.},\n year = {1999},\n number = {2},\n pages = {135-76},\n volume = {73},\n abstract = {The work reported here experimentally investigates a striking generalization\n\tabout vocabulary acquisition: Noun learning is superior to verb learning\n\tin the earliest moments of child language development. The dominant\n\texplanation of this phenomenon in the literature invokes differing\n\tconceptual requirements for items in these lexical categories: Verbs\n\tare cognitively more complex than nouns and so their acquisition\n\tmust await certain mental developments in the infant. In the present\n\twork, we investigate an alternative hypothesis; namely, that it is\n\tthe information requirements of verb learning, not the conceptual\n\trequirements, that crucially determine the acquisition order. Efficient\n\tverb learning requires access to structural features of the exposure\n\tlanguage and thus cannot take place until a scaffolding of noun knowledge\n\tenables the acquisition of clause-level syntax. More generally, we\n\texperimentally investigate the hypothesis that vocabulary acquisition\n\ttakes place via an incremental constraint-satisfaction procedure\n\tthat bootstraps itself into successively more sophisticated linguistic\n\trepresentations which, in turn, enable new kinds of vocabulary learning.\n\tIf the experimental subjects were young children, it would be difficult\n\tto distinguish between this information-centered hypothesis and the\n\tconceptual change hypothesis. Therefore the experimental \"learners\"\n\tare adults. The items to be \"acquired\" in the experiments were the\n\t24 most frequent nouns and 24 most frequent verbs from a sample of\n\tmaternal speech to 18-24-month-old infants. The various experiments\n\task about the kinds of information that will support identification\n\tof these words as they occur in mother-to-child discourse. Both the\n\tproportion correctly identified and the type of word that is identifiable\n\tchanges significantly as a function of information type. We discuss\n\tthese results as consistent with the incremental construction of\n\ta highly lexicalized grammar by cognitively and pragmatically sophisticated\n\thuman infants, but inconsistent with a procedure in which lexical\n\tacquisition is independent of and antecedent to syntax acquisition.},\n keywords = {Adult, Female, Human, Infant, Language Development, Male, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Speech Perception, Support, Non-U.S. Gov, ', t, U.S. Gov, Non-P.H.S., Verbal Learning, Vocabulary, 10580161},\n}\n\n","author_short":["Gillette, J","Gleitman, H.","Gleitman, L. R","Lederer, A"],"key":"Gillette1999","id":"Gillette1999","bibbaseid":"gillette-gleitman-gleitman-lederer-humansimulationsofvocabularylearning-1999","role":"author","urls":{},"keyword":["Adult","Female","Human","Infant","Language Development","Male","Psycholinguistics","Semantics","Speech Perception","Support","Non-U.S. Gov","'","t","U.S. Gov","Non-P.H.S.","Verbal Learning","Vocabulary","10580161"],"metadata":{"authorlinks":{}}},"bibtype":"article","biburl":"https://endress.org/publications/ansgar.bib","dataSources":["xPGxHAeh3vZpx4yyE","TXa55dQbNoWnaGmMq"],"keywords":["adult","female","human","infant","language development","male","psycholinguistics","semantics","speech perception","support","non-u.s. gov","'","t","u.s. gov","non-p.h.s.","verbal learning","vocabulary","10580161"],"search_terms":["human","simulations","vocabulary","learning","gillette","gleitman","gleitman","lederer"],"title":"Human simulations of vocabulary learning.","year":1999}