Bassano D
Laboratoire Cognition et Développement, Université Paris V-CNRS, France.
J Child Lang. 2000 Oct;27(3):521-59. doi: 10.1017/s0305000900004396.
Early acquisition of nouns and verbs across languages is a key issue for a number of recent studies that question the reality of the 'noun-bias' and wonder about the reasons why it exists as they explore the role of cognitive vs. more language-specific input factors. Addressing this issue, the present study investigates how the noun and verb word classes develop in the free speech of a French child between the ages of 1;2 and 2;6, from the perspective of semantic and grammatical development. The analyses indicate that, in French acquisition, nouns clearly predominate over verbs until age 1;8 at least, but that verbs are produced in the early stages. Concrete object names among nouns and concrete action verbs among verbs were found to be the most prevalent categories, but they were not the earliest to appear and their distribution revealed an asymmetry in the conceptual packaging of nouns and verbs. Verb grammaticalization, assessed through inflection and auxiliary use, lagged somewhat behind noun grammaticalization, assessed through determiner use. This result supports the hypothesized noun-verb grammatical asynchrony. Verb grammaticalization seems to be related to the production of concrete action verbs, and noun grammaticalization to that of concrete object nouns, indicating interactions between semantic and grammatical development. These findings, discussed in a cross-linguistic perspective, suggest that both conceptual and grammatical packaging are important and interacting factors in noun and verb development, and argue in favour of a constructivist approach to language acquisition.
对于近期的一些研究而言，跨语言早期习得名词和动词是一个关键问题。这些研究对“名词偏向”的真实性提出质疑，并在探究认知因素与更具语言特异性的输入因素的作用时，思考其存在的原因。为解决这一问题，本研究从语义和语法发展的角度，调查了一名1岁2个月至2岁6个月的法国儿童在自由言语中名词和动词词类是如何发展的。分析表明，在法语习得过程中，至少在1岁8个月之前，名词明显比动词占主导地位，但动词在早期阶段就已出现。研究发现，名词中的具体物体名称和动词中的具体动作动词是最普遍的类别，但它们并非最早出现的，并且它们的分布揭示了名词和动词在概念包装上的不对称。通过词形变化和助动词使用来评估的动词语法化，在一定程度上落后于通过限定词使用来评估的名词语法化。这一结果支持了假设的名词 - 动词语法异步性。动词语法化似乎与具体动作动词的产生有关，名词语法化与具体物体名词的产生有关，这表明语义和语法发展之间存在相互作用。从跨语言的角度讨论这些发现，表明概念和语法包装都是名词和动词发展中的重要且相互作用的因素，并支持一种建构主义的语言习得方法。
