Previous research has focused on evaluating the nouns and verbs in
parents' input through type/token ratios. This research offers an
additional means of evaluating parent speech by first examining the
frequencies of individual nouns, verbs and descriptors and second
examining the learning task presented to children. Study 1 examines 25
transcripts from the CHILDES database of English-speaking parents'
speech to children at five developmental levels ranging from 0;11 to
2;11 in age. Study 2 examines 50 transcripts from the CHILDES
database of Mandarin-speaking caregivers' speech to children ranging
from 1;9 to 2;3 in age. The results suggest that the patterns of
frequency for individual nouns and individual verbs are different, but
that the frequency patterns for nouns and the frequency patterns for
verbs are similar in English and Mandarin. Further, this research
suggests that in both languages the nouns in parents' input are similarly
organized: the most frequent nouns spoken to children tend to name
solid objects that share a similar shape. In contrast verbs' meanings in
both languages tend to include more variable conceptual relations.