Young children's overextensions of object words in comprehension and/or production: support for a prototype theory of early object word meaning

Abstract

That young children overextend the meaning of at least some object words (words used to refer to objects) is well recognized. However, recent research suggests that overextensions in production may not be reflected in comprehension. In order to better determine the relation between overextension in production and overextension in com prehension, six children ranging in age from 1;9 to 2;4 were given a production task and a comprehension task. The data demonstrate that when children are given a number of choices on a comprehension task for a particular word, their initial choice is invariably an appropriate exemplar of the target word. However, the children's successive choices for each target term are likely to involve overextended objects. It is argued that this pattern supports a prototype account of early object word meaning acquisition.