Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Learning proper nouns and common nouns without clues from syntax.

M Imai1, E Haryu

  • 1Keio University at Shonan-Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan. imai@sfc.keio.ac.jp

Child Development
|June 19, 2001
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

[Changes in plasma tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) by the interferon treatment for chronic hepatitis C].

Rinsho byori. The Japanese journal of clinical pathology·1995
Same author

[A case of Ebstein's anomaly treated by tricuspid valve replacement].

Kyobu geka. The Japanese journal of thoracic surgery·1995
Same author

Prior enrichment of human immunodeficiency virus DNA with probe DNA particles for efficient PCR diagnosis.

Journal of clinical microbiology·1995
Same author

[Prior enrichment of HIV-DNA with probe-DNA particles for an efficient PCR diagnosis].

Kansenshogaku zasshi. The Journal of the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases·1995
Same author

[Role of interstitium in the regulation of renal tubular solute transport].

Nihon rinsho. Japanese journal of clinical medicine·1995
Same author

[Study on reverse transcriptase inhibiting antibody in plasma of HIV-1 seropositive subjects].

Kansenshogaku zasshi. The Journal of the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases·1995
Same journal

An associative learning account of how saliva becomes a cue for comfort.

Child development·2026
Same journal

If moms do it, it can't be that important: Children's reasoning about gender disparities in domestic work.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Adapting under stress: How sociocultural stress intensity and fluctuation shape youth school engagement and internalizing symptoms.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Children across diverse societies exchange reasons to resolve disagreements.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Beyond resources: Children in India and Germany have a multifaceted concept of fairness.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Situating developmental science in cultural context: Lessons from the study of Asian-heritage children.

Child development·2026
See all related articles

Japanese children learn new words without grammatical cues. Even without syntax, 2-year-olds effectively map novel nouns to object meanings using cognitive biases.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • English grammar uses syntax to differentiate nouns (proper, mass, count).
  • Japanese lacks grammatical markers for noun type distinctions (e.g., singular/plural, proper/common).
  • Understanding early word acquisition in languages lacking explicit grammatical cues is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how Japanese children learn novel noun meanings without syntactic information.
  • To examine the role of conceptual biases in word learning for young children.
  • To compare word learning for familiar/unfamiliar and animal/inanimate object referents.

Main Methods:

  • Studied 2- and 4-year-old Japanese children's interpretation of novel nouns.
  • Presented novel labels for familiar and unfamiliar animals and inanimate objects.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analyzed children's noun-to-meaning mappings based on referent type and prior naming.

    • Main Results:

    • Children mapped novel labels to basic-level object categories for unfamiliar items, regardless of referent type.
    • For named inanimate objects, children inferred subordinate category mappings.
    • For named animals, children tended to interpret novel labels as proper nouns.
    • Absence of syntax necessitated reliance on other information sources for word learning.

    Conclusions:

    • Japanese 2-year-olds demonstrate sophisticated word learning abilities without syntactic cues.
    • Children coordinate innate word-learning biases with contextual information to map novel nouns.
    • This study highlights the flexibility of early word acquisition strategies across different linguistic environments.