Adjectives really do modify nouns: The incremental and restricted nature of early adjective acquisition. Mintz, T. H & Gleitman, L. R Cognition, 84(3):267-93, 2002.
abstract   bibtex   
By 24 months, most children spontaneously and correctly use adjectives. Yet prior laboratory research that has studied lexical acquisition in young children reports that children up to 3-years-old map novel adjectives to object properties only in very limited situations (Child Development 59 (1988) 411; Child Development 64 (1993) 1651; Child Development 71 (2000) 649; Developmental Psychology 36 (2000) 571; Child Development 69 (1998) 1313). In Experiments 1 and 2 we introduced 36-month-olds (Experiment 1) and 24-month-olds (Experiment 2) to novel adjectives while providing rich referential and syntactic information to indicate what the novel words mean. Specifically, we used a given novel adjective to describe multiple familiar objects which shared a salient property; in addition we used the adjectives in full noun phrases, not in conjunction with pronouns. Under these conditions, both groups mapped novel adjectives onto object properties. In Experiment 3 we asked whether the rich referential information was responsible for the successful outcome of the previous two experiments; we introduced novel adjectives to 2- and 3-year-olds as in Experiments 1 and 2, but the adjectives modified nouns of vague (very general) reference ("one", or "thing"). Under these conditions the children failed. We suggest that young word learners require access to the taxonomy of the object type so that the relevant property can be identified. The taxonomically specific nouns of Experiments 1 and 2 accomplish this, whereas the more general, semantically bleached nominals in Experiment 3 do not. Taken together with related findings in the literature, these findings favor an account of lexical acquisition in which layers of information become available incrementally, as a consequence of solving prior parts of the learning problem.
@Article{Mintz2002a,
  author   = {Toben H Mintz and Lila R Gleitman},
  journal  = {Cognition},
  title    = {Adjectives really do modify nouns: {T}he incremental and restricted nature of early adjective acquisition.},
  year     = {2002},
  number   = {3},
  pages    = {267-93},
  volume   = {84},
  abstract = {By 24 months, most children spontaneously and correctly use adjectives.
	Yet prior laboratory research that has studied lexical acquisition
	in young children reports that children up to 3-years-old map novel
	adjectives to object properties only in very limited situations (Child
	Development 59 (1988) 411; Child Development 64 (1993) 1651; Child
	Development 71 (2000) 649; Developmental Psychology 36 (2000) 571;
	Child Development 69 (1998) 1313). In Experiments 1 and 2 we introduced
	36-month-olds (Experiment 1) and 24-month-olds (Experiment 2) to
	novel adjectives while providing rich referential and syntactic information
	to indicate what the novel words mean. Specifically, we used a given
	novel adjective to describe multiple familiar objects which shared
	a salient property; in addition we used the adjectives in full noun
	phrases, not in conjunction with pronouns. Under these conditions,
	both groups mapped novel adjectives onto object properties. In Experiment
	3 we asked whether the rich referential information was responsible
	for the successful outcome of the previous two experiments; we introduced
	novel adjectives to 2- and 3-year-olds as in Experiments 1 and 2,
	but the adjectives modified nouns of vague (very general) reference
	("one", or "thing"). Under these conditions the children failed.
	We suggest that young word learners require access to the taxonomy
	of the object type so that the relevant property can be identified.
	The taxonomically specific nouns of Experiments 1 and 2 accomplish
	this, whereas the more general, semantically bleached nominals in
	Experiment 3 do not. Taken together with related findings in the
	literature, these findings favor an account of lexical acquisition
	in which layers of information become available incrementally, as
	a consequence of solving prior parts of the learning problem.},
  keywords = {Child Development, Cognition, Human, Infant, Newborn, Language Development, Linguistics, Support, Non-U.S. Gov, ', t, U.S. Gov, P.H.S., Adult, Concept Formation, Cues, Female, Language, Male, Problem Solving, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Students, Child, Preschool, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Verbal Learning, 12044736},
}

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