LEARNING NAMES FOR SOLID SUBSTANCES - QUANTIFYING SOLID ENTITIES IN TERMS OF PORTIONS

Objects are quantified in terms of individuals whereas substances are quantified in terms of portions. Soja, Carey, & Spelke (1991) have sho wn that 2-year-olds take words used to name solid entities as naming o bjects and quantify them in terms of individuals. One consequence of c hildren's bias to quantify solids in terms of individuals is that they may have problems learning names for solid substances. Previous resea rch suggests that this may be the case. In the study presented here, t wo experiments investigated 2 1/2- to 3 1/2-year-olds' knowledge of na mes for solid substances, their ability to learn names for solid subst ances, and their knowledge of nonlinguistic properties of solid substa nces. It was found that children of this age do not know many names fo r solid substances but can be taught names for them. There was also ev idence that children represent the names as mass nouns and possibly ad jectives. Finally, it was found that there is development of children' s nonlinguistic knowledge of substances between the ages of 2 1/2 and 3 years. The relevance of these results for theories of lexical develo pment are discussed.