Search research articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Videos

Comprehending compounds: evidence for metaphoric skill?

G M Gottfried¹

¹Department of Psychology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA.

Journal of Child Language

|February 1, 1997

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

Using metaphors as modifiers: children's production of metaphoric compounds.

Journal of child language·1998

Same author

Specifying the relation between novel and known: input affects the acquisition of novel color terms.

Child development·1996

Same journal

Child Phonology in a Language Revitalization Context: Evidence from Hul'q'umi'num'.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

Disentangling Bilingualism and Developmental Language Disorder in the Acquisition of Spanish Verbal Agreement Morphology.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

Perceptual asymmetries in the development of lexical tone perception in Thai-learning children.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

To bind or not to bind: Individual differences in pronominal processing among adolescent Mandarin-English heritage speakers.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

Influence of Visual Context Stability on Word Learning in Fourteen- and Nineteen-Month-Old Children.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

Revisiting the Acquisition of Conditionals: Children's and Adults' Expression of Hypothetical Thought.

Journal of child language·2026

See all related articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Three-year-olds can understand shape-based metaphoric compounds like "stick-bug," even with distractions. However, they struggle with color-based compounds, showing developing comprehension skills in children's language acquisition.

Area of Science:

Developmental Psychology
Linguistics
Cognitive Science

Background:

Children's understanding of compound nouns is crucial for language development.
Previous research indicates three-year-olds can interpret compounds with salient distractors.
Metaphoric compounds, where one noun denotes similarity to another object (e.g., catfish), present unique comprehension challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate children's comprehension of metaphoric noun-noun compounds.
To examine the role of visual resemblance (shape vs. color/pattern) in understanding these compounds.
To assess developmental differences in metaphoric compound comprehension from age three to adulthood.

Main Methods:

Four studies were conducted involving 44 three-year-olds, 45 five-year-olds, and 22 adults.

Related Experiment Videos

Participants identified referents of metaphoric compounds presented in picture arrays.

Arrays included targets with shape-based (e.g., stick-bug) or color/pattern-based (e.g., zebra-shells) resemblances, alongside distractors.

Main Results:

Both three- and five-year-olds successfully comprehended shape-based metaphoric compounds, even with distractors.
Younger children (three-year-olds) exhibited difficulties with color/pattern-based metaphoric compounds.
Five-year-olds outperformed three-year-olds, but both groups performed significantly below adults.

Conclusions:

Children as young as three can understand shape-based metaphoric compounds, indicating early metaphorical reasoning.
Comprehension of color/pattern-based metaphoric compounds develops later than shape-based ones.
Children do not universally interpret compounds literally, demonstrating an emerging ability to grasp non-literal meanings.