Recent years have seen a revolution in our knowledge of how children learn to think and speak. In this volume, leading scholars from these rapidlyevolvingfieldsofresearchexaminetherelationshipbetweenchild language acquisition and cognitive development. At first sight recent advancesinthetwoareasseemtohavemovedinopposingdirections:the studyof languageacquisitionhasbeenespeciallyconcernedwithdiver- sity, explaining how children learn languages of widely different types, whilethestudyofcognitivedevelopmenthasfocusedonuniformity,clari- fyinghowchildrenbuildonfundamental,presumablyuniversal,concepts. Thisbookbringsthesetwovitalstrandsof investigationintoclosedia- logue,suggestinganewsynthesisinwhichtheprocessoflanguageacqui- sitionmayinteractwithearlycognitivedevelopment.Itprovidesoriginal empiricalcontributions,basedonavarietyoflanguages,populations,and ages,andtheoreticaldiscussionsthatcutacrossthedisciplinesofpsychol- ogy,linguistics,andanthropology. melissa bowerman isSeniorScientistattheMaxPlanckInstitutefor PsycholinguisticsandProfessorattheFreeUniversityofAmsterdam.Her work focuses on first language acquisition in children. She is author of Earlysyntacticdevelopment:across-linguisticstudywithspecialreferenceto Finnish(1973),andmanyarticlesandchaptersonlanguagedevelopment. stephen levinson is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.Heiseditorof theCambridgeUniversityPressseries Language,CultureandCognition.HispreviousbooksincludePragmatics (1983),Politeness(1987),andPresumptivemeanings(2000),andheisco- editorofRethinkinglinguisticrelativity(1996). Language,cultureandcognition3 Languageacquisitionandconceptualdevelopment Language,cultureandcognition Editor STEPHEN C. LEVINSON MaxPlanckInstituteforPsycholinguistics,Nijmegen Thisnewserieslooksattheroleof languageinhumancognition– languageinbothitsuniversal,psychologicalaspectsanditsvariable, culturalaspects.Studieswillfocusontherelationbetweensemanticand conceptualcategoriesandprocesses,especiallyastheseareilluminated bycross-linguisticandcross-culturalstudies,thestudyof language acquisitionandconceptualdevelopment,andthestudyof therelation of speechproductionandcomprehensiontootherkindsof behaviorin culturalcontext.Bookscomeprincipally,thoughnotexclusively,from researchassociatedwiththeMaxPlanckInstituteforPsycholinguistics inNijmegen. 1. JanNuytsandEricPedersen(eds.)Languageandconceptualization 2. DavidMcNeill(ed.)Languageandgesture 3. MelissaBowermanandStephenC.Levinson(eds.)Language acquisitionandconceptualdevelopment Language acquisition and conceptual development Editedby MelissaBowermanandStephenC.Levinson MaxPlanckInstituteforPsycholinguistics CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521593588 © Cambridge University Press 2001 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2001 Third printing 2003 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Language acquisition and conceptual development / edited by Melissa Bowerman and Stephen C. Levinson. p. cm – (Language, culture and cognition: 3) Includes index. ISBN 0 521 59358 1 – ISBN 0 521 59659 9 (paperback) 1. Language acquisition. 2. Cognition in children. I. Bowerman, Melissa. II. Levinson, Stephen C. III. Series. P118.L2497 2000 401´.93 – dc21 99-42105 CIP ISBN-13 978-0-521-59358-8 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-59358-1 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-59659-6 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-59659-9 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2006 Contents Preface pagexi Introduction 1 Part1 Foundationalissues 21 Themosaicevolutionofcognitiveandlinguisticontogeny 19 jonas langer 22 Theories,language,andculture:Whorfwithoutwincing 45 alison gopnik 23 Initialknowledgeandconceptualchange:spaceandnumber 70 elizabeth s. spelke and sanna tsivkin Part2 Constraintsonwordlearning? 24 Howdomain-generalprocessesmaycreatedomain-specific 101 biases linda b. smith 25 Perceivingintentionsandlearningwordsinthesecondyear 132 oflife michael tomasello 26 Rootsofwordlearning 159 paul bloom Part3 Entities,individuation,andquantification 27 Whorfversuscontinuitytheorists:bringingdatatobearon 185 thedebate susan carey vii viii Listofcontents 28 Individuation,relativity,andearlywordlearning 215 dedre gentner and lera boroditsky 29 Grammaticalcategoriesandthedevelopmentofclassification 257 preferences:acomparativeapproach john a. lucy and suzanne gaskins 10 Personinthelanguageofsingletons,siblings,andtwins 284 werner deutsch, angela wagner, renate burchardt, nina schulz, and jörg nakath 11 Earlyrepresentationsforall,each,andtheircounterpartsin 316 MandarinChineseandPortuguese patricia j. brooks, martin d. s. braine, gisela jia, and maria da graca dias 12 Children’sweakinterpretationsofuniversallyquantified 340 questions kenneth f. drozd Part4 Relationalconceptsinform–functionmapping 13 Emergentcategoriesinfirstlanguageacquisition 379 eve v. clark 14 Form–functionrelations:howdochildrenfindoutwhatthey 406 are? dan i. slobin 15 Cognitive–conceptualdevelopmentandtheacquisitionof 450 grammaticalmorphemes:thedevelopmentoftimeconceptsand verbtense heike behrens 16 Shapingmeaningsforlanguage:universalandlanguage- 475 specificintheacquisitionofspatialsemanticcategories melissa bowerman and soonja choi 17 Learningtotalkaboutmotionupanddown inTzeltal:is 512 therealanguage-specificbiasforverblearning? penelope brown 18 Findingtherichestpath:languageandcognitioninthe 544 acquisitionofverticalityinTzotzil(Mayan) lourdes de león Listofcontents ix 19 Covariationbetweenspatiallanguageandcognition,andits 566 implicationsforlanguagelearning stephen c. levinson Authorindex 589 Subjectindex 597