University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
J Child Lang. 2013 Nov;40(5):1057-75. doi: 10.1017/S0305000912000529. Epub 2012 Nov 9.
Most evidence concerning cross-linguistic variation in noun bias, the preponderance of nouns in early expressive lexicons (Gentner, 1982), has come from comparisons of monolingual children acquiring different languages. Such designs are susceptible to a number of potential confounders, including group differences in developmental level and sociodemographic characteristics. The aim of this study was to quantify noun bias in bilingual Mandarin-English toddlers whose expressive lexicons in each language contained 50-300 words. Parents of fifty children (1;10-2;6) reported separately on their English and Mandarin expressive lexicons. The mean percentage of Mandarin nouns (38%) was significantly lower than the percentage of English nouns (54%) and was robust to analyses of twelve potential covariates. Analyses of the most frequently reported words suggested that lexical reduplication could be considered as a potential influence on vocabulary composition in future studies. Results suggest that characteristics of the input significantly shape early lexicons.
大多数关于名词偏向的跨语言变化的证据，即名词在早期表达词汇中的优势（Gentner，1982），都来自于对学习不同语言的单语儿童的比较。这种设计容易受到许多潜在混杂因素的影响，包括发展水平和社会人口特征的群体差异。本研究的目的是量化双语普通话-英语幼儿的名词偏向，他们在每种语言中的表达词汇量为 50-300 个单词。50 名儿童（1；10-2；6）的父母分别报告了他们的英语和普通话表达词汇量。普通话名词的平均百分比（38%）明显低于英语名词的百分比（54%），并且在分析十二个潜在协变量时是稳健的。对最常报告的单词的分析表明，词汇重复可以被认为是未来研究中词汇组成的潜在影响因素。结果表明，输入的特征显著影响早期词汇。
