2.3.2.1 Constraints for word meaning acquisition
2.3.2.1.1 Whole object constraint
One proposed constraint is called the whole-object constraint which is that “a novel label
is likely to refer to the whole object and not its parts, substance, or other properties”
(Markman, 1990, p.59). From an early age children appear to expect that when they hear
an unfamiliar label, they should find that it picks out some kind of object as a whole-and
not just a part of it (Macnamara, 1982; Markman & Wachtel, 1988).
Nevertheless, some criticisms were raised. One of the criticisms came from Soja, Carey
and Spelke (1991). They revealed that children have different strategies when applying
words to solid objects and to non-solid substances. The paradigm employed was to
present a solid shape such as “T” made out of piping, and frequently refer to it with a
nonsense word. Then the 2-year-old children were asked whether the nonsense word
referred to a similar shape made up of another solid substance or to parts of the original
substance in different smaller shapes. As one might expect from the whole object
assumption, 2 year olds applied the nonsense word to solid objects of the same shape as
the original referent, rather than to the parts of the original.
More interesting findings occurred when the same procedure was used with a non-solid
substance (e.g. cold ice-cream). In the test the children were given the same shape made
up of different substance, or smaller elements of the original substance. They were asked
to choose which set corresponded to the nonsense word. Children tended to choose the
substance rather than the shape. Therefore, the study suggests that children, when learning
words, have greater flexibility than the whole object assumption would suggest, and that
at an early age they use their knowledge about the world to help them make appropriate
choices when objects and substances are named. Another criticism identified by Nelson
(1988) as the need to explain how children are able to acquire action and other types of
words. Early vocabularies do not consist entirely of object words. How do children
identify when it is inappropriate to employ the whole object assumption ?
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