ERIC Number: EJ1485911
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jan
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: EISSN-1469-7602
Available Date: 0000-00-00
The Distributional and Embodied Contexts of Verbs in Caregiver-Infant Interactions
Vivian Hanwen Zhang1,2; Lucas M. Chang1; Gedeon O. Deák1
Journal of Child Language, v52 n1 p180-194 2025
The process by which infants learn verbs through daily social interactions is not well-understood. This study investigated caregivers' use of verbs, which have highly abstract meanings, during unscripted toy-play. We examined how verbs co-occurred with distributional and embodied factors including pronouns, caregivers' manual actions, and infants' locomotion, gaze, and object-touching. Object-action verbs were used significantly more often during caregiver-infant joint attention interactions. Movement and cognition verbs showed distinct co-occurrences with different contexts. Cognition and volition verbs were differentiated by pronouns. These findings provide evidence for how verb acquisition may be supported by the distributional and embodied contexts in caregiver-infant interactions.
Descriptors: Infants, Verbs, Language Acquisition, Language Usage, Form Classes (Languages), Parent Child Relationship, Mothers, Play
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California
Grant or Contract Numbers: 0527756
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, USA; 2Department of Psychology, Cornell University, USA

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