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Syntactic bootstrapping with clausal complements of adjectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2023

Kristen SYRETT Open the ORCID record for Kristen SYRETT [Opens in a new window]
Kristen SYRETT*
Affiliation:
Rutgers The State University of New Jersey – Department of Linguistics 18 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-8554 United States
*
Email: kristen.syrett@rutgers.edu
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Extract

Like verbs, adjectives pose a challenge to the young word learner in that some – like red, round, rough, or rectangular – map onto properties that are detectable through the senses, while others – like ready, reasonable, or required – express abstract properties that have no reliable, physical correlate. Even for those adjectives whose properties are observable, how does a child know that one particular property is being highlighted above all others? The physical environment alone will not suffice. Just as with verbs, the child learning adjectives is faced with an inherent indeterminacy of meaning, which can only be resolved through the incorporation of cues originating from multiple sources.

Keywords

adjectivessyntactic bootstrappingsemanticsword learning
Type
Invited Commentary
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 50 , Issue 5: Special Issue on Syntactic Bootstrapping , September 2023 , pp. 1069 - 1073
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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