Where actions meet words:

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Where actions meet words

• The paradox of early verb learning

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek Roberta Golinkoff Temple
University University of
Delaware
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With support from many students, graduate and
undergraduate, and NSF

• Mandy Maguire
• Beth Hennon
• Shannon Pruden
• Meredith Meyer
• Carolyn Fenter
• Jennifer Sootsman
• Rachel Pulverman
• Sara Salkind
• Khara Pence
• Dede Addy
• Natalie Hansell

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Beginning at the beginning

• Language- whats the big deal?
• Language can
• start wars
• ruin marriages
• allow a colloquium presentation

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Language allows us to label objects..

• But more importantly.

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Language is about relations

• The power of language is not in learning the word
  cabbage and the word Jim but in learning how
  to express relations between these words.
• Jim ate the cabbage
• The cabbage attacked Jim
• Jim, dont sit the babies in the cabbage!

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And relations are encoded in(among other things)

• VERBS

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Verbs form the architectural centerpiece of the
sentence.

• You just cant learn language without learning
  verbs!

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In this talk

• We begin to explore the new frontiers of
• verb acquisition by studying how children
• learn their first action words.
• We will thus use the term verb loosely to
• refer to action words.
• With this caveat in mind.

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We offer a talk in 4 parts

• The ParadoxVerbs are HARD to learn
• But children have them in their earliest
  vocabularies
• Theories of verb learning
• Building verbs A developmental account
• Explaining the paradox A beginning

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Part 1 Verbs are hard to learn
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Act I Demonstration through a typical motion
event
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• What did you see?
• How would you describe it?

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• What nouns did you use?
• Sliding board? Child? Apartment building?
• Ground? Grass?
• What verbs did you use?

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You might have used verbs like
approach ascend bend climb descend go
grab hit leave lift pull push run
sit slide stand step straighten swing
tuck
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The verb problem

• A verb encodes only part of what is happening in
  a motion event including (from Talmy, 1985)
• Manner the way an action is carried out
• Path the trajectory of an action with respect
  to some reference point

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Cross-Linguistic Differences

• Languages differ in terms of the relative
  frequencies of different types of verbs
• Path and Motion
• e.g., Spanish, Turkish, Greek
• La mujer salió de la casa (corriendo)
• The woman exited the house (running)
• Manner and Motion
• e.g., English, Indonesian, Chinese
• The woman ran out of the house

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Sliding Event
approach ascend bend climb descend go
grab hit leave lift pull push run
sit slide stand step straighten swing
tuck
MANNER
PATH
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Gentner (1992, 2001,2003) suggests verbs are
harder to learn than nouns because

• Verbs more polysemous than nouns
• e.g., run - 53 entries! ball - 2 entries
• Label relations as compared to perceptual
• similarity or function
• Harder to individuate actions than objects and to
• to form categories of actions than objects
• ( What is the invariant in running when
  performed by
• Carl Lewis or your grandmother?)
• Ephemeral events not concrete
• e.g., running vs. cup

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Act II Verbs are really hard

• A demonstration from Japanese and English

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The rationale

• Some have argued that a noun bias is a product
  of learning English. In Asian, verb final
  languages, children have a higher proportion of
  verbs in their early vocabularies relative to
  nouns. Thus, verbs might be as easy to learn as
  nouns in these languages.
• (Tardiff 1996, Gopnik Choi)

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Standard Scene

• ??! X????
• Look ! (She is) X-ing a)
• a) X-ing is a novel verb.

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Two Test Scenes
same object, different action
same action, different object

• X??????????
• In which (movie) is (she) X-ing?

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The facts

• Participants
• 41, 3-year-olds (M36)
• 40, 5-year-olds (M5.0)
• Task Pointing to one of two scenes on video

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Japanese Results
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A replication in English(Meyer,
Hirsh-Pasek,Golinkoff, Imai, Haryu)

• Same tapes used in Japanese
• Same ages 3 (N55) and 5 yrs. (N59)
• 3 language conditions
• - Noun (Find the blick!)
• - Bare verb (Blicking! Wheres blicking?)
• - Rich syntax Agent/Obj/Verb (Where is she
  blicking? Look at her. She is blicking
  it.)

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English Results
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Act III Verbs are really, really hard

• So we simplified the design.
• Asked children to learn and extend only one novel
  action, no novel object present.
• And they still couldnt do it by age 3 years

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THE BOTTOM LINE?
We got a headache!
PARADOX
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THE PARADOX

• Verbs are really, really, really hard to learn
• BUT
• They appear in childrens earliest vocabularies
• Choi Bowerman, 1991 Choi, 1998
• Brown Bowerman, deLeon Choi, 1995
• Fenson et al., 1994 Tardif, 1996, 1999

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Part IIAddressing the paradox

• Three theories of verb learning

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Three theories

• The Universal Concepts theories
• The Language-specific theories
• The Hybrid theories

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Universal Concepts Theories
Universal concepts
Language

• PATH
• MANNER
• CONTAINMENT
• CAUSALITY

maps onto concepts
The central problem is how do children, from an
initially equivalent base, end up controlling
often very differently structured languages.
Bowerman Levinson (2001)
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Evidence for Universal Concepts Theories?

• Languages around the world draw on the same set
  of concepts
• (Talmy, Langacker, etc.)
• Perceptually salient (concrete, individuated)
  information will
• be coded first.
• Developmental data Bowerman (1974) He falled
  it. and
• Clark (2001) (y for inherent properties (he is
  short) and ed for
• temporary (he is tired).

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Language-Specific Theories
Language
Concepts

• PATH
• MANNER
• CONTAINMENT
• CAUSALITY

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Evidence for language-specific theories?

• Words are invitations to form categories (Brown,
  Balaban
• Waxman Maguire, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff ).
• The terms, pour vs spill invite listeners to
  find distinctions
• between these concepts.
• Verbs learned one at a time, then generalized
  via
• common syntax (Tomasellos Verb Island
  Hypothesis).
• Choi Bowerman, 1991 Akhtar Tomasello, 1997)
  Schlyter, (1990 on
• bilingual development in French and German)
• GO used with separate senses (Theakston et
  al.,2002)

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Hybrid theories
Universal concepts
Language input
Together determine
Verb meaning
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Hybrid Theories

• Natural partitions hypothesis (Gentner
  Boroditskys, 2001 Gentner, 2003) Abstract
  universal concepts that are easily individuated
  across multiple instances.
• Slobin (2001) Both conceptual primitives and
  language input work jointly in the childs
  construction of verb meaning.
• Gleitman et al, 1991, Fisher et al., 2002
  Naigles Syntax of language critical to zooming
  in on verb meaning.
• Hirsh-Pasek Golinkoff (forthcoming),
  Emergentist Coalition Model children start with
  universal perceptual/conceptual foundation using
  syntactic and social cues to prune
  language-specific verb meaning.

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The Emergent Coalition Model
Linguistic and social cues sculpt universal
concepts in ways consistent with the native
language
Linguistic
Universal perceptual/conceptual
Social
2nd and 3rd year of life
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Predictions

• Infants should be able to discriminate and
  categorize universal concepts (e.g., path,
  manner)
• When action meets words, children should assume
  that the word labels the most perceptually
  salient universal relational concept (e.g., path
  over manner)
• Embedding the verb in rich syntax, allows
  children to map the verb to the action in
  language-specific ways
• Attuned to speaker social intent, children should
  map a verb to an action in language-specific ways
  (in progress)

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To investigate this we need

• To find universally available concepts used
  differently across languages
• Enter PATH and MANNER
• To find methodologies that can assess verb
  comprehension in young children of different ages
• Enter Habituation, Preferential Looking (IPLP),
  Preferential Pointing Paradigms (PPP)

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Part 3 Building verbs A developmental account
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What does it take to learn a verb? A
3-pronged approach
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• Nonlinguistic conceptions of actions in events
  (finding action processing actions in ways
  relevant to language forming categories of
  actions.)
• 2. What happens when action meets word?
• What does it take for a baby to learn a verb?
  What factors influence early verb learning?
• How is childrens verb learning influenced by the
  syntax of the target language and by an
  understanding of speaker social intent?

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Nonlinguistic conceptions of action
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Study Can infants discriminate proposed
universal concepts in nonlinguistic events?
Method Habituation Participants 18, 7
month-olds 40, 14-17 months Vocabulary for
older children Half above mean half below (on
MacArthur) Question Can infants
dishabituate to new events that change the MANNER
and/or the PATH of an event?
(Pulverman, Sootsman, Golinkoff Hirsh-Pasek,
2002)
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Enter Starry
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The Habituation study..(Pulverman)
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Stimuli
9 computer-animated motion events
3 Manners flapping spinning bending
3 Paths over under past
NO LANGUAGE ACCOMPANIED THESE EVENTS
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Procedure and design

• Habituated to one of 9 stimulus events
• Trials ended after 2-second look away or 30
  seconds, whichever came first
• Within subjects design
• IV test conditions DV looking time

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Test Events, an eg.

• Control Event (Habituated to )
• Flapping Over
• Path Change Event
• Flapping Under
• Manner Change Event
• Spinning Over
• Both Change Event
• Bending Past
• (order counterbalanced across children)

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Drumroll PleaseMajor Findings

• 7 14-mo olds discriminate universal action
  components (MANNER and PATH) in ongoing events.

2) HIGH VOCABULARY CHILDREN, pay more
attention to MANNER changes than PATH changes --
consistent with prominence of MANNER in English.
-Do all high vocabulary children pay attention to
MANNER? OR do children learning Spanish attend
to PATH? (Pulverman et al.).
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What happens when actions meet words?
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Predictions

• Children should assume that the word labels the
  most perceptually salient universal relational
  concept (e.g., PATH over MANNER)
• A common label should focus attention on
  language-specific components in this case to
  MANNER (Gentner)
• Children who already know some relational terms
  should be able to use syntactic support to learn
  novel verbs (Jones Smith Slobin)

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Three experiments

• Experiment 1 Do 2-year-olds assume a novel verb
  label refers to the PATH of the action?
• Experiment 2 Can 2-year-olds use multiple
  exemplars of events to guide verb learning?
• Experiment 3 Can 2-year-olds use multiple
  exemplars and syntactic cues to guide verb
  learning?

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Study Maguire (2003)Will infants attach a word
to the most salient, individuated aspect of an
event?
Method Preferential Looking to one of two video
events Participants Age - 16 children at each
of 2 ages (2 2.5) High (
95) and average relational vocabulary
(prepositions, verbs, on MacArthur,) 7
high relation, 18 average Question Wi
ll children take a novel verb as a label for
the PATH or MANNER of an event? Path
most salient but English tends to label MANNER
not PATH
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Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm
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Design

• Introduction Introduce Starry
• Salience trials Test salience of test trials
• Training Teach a novel action label
• Test trials Does the child take the verb to mean
  the PATH or the MANNER of the event?

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Design
Introduction
Meet Starry. Starry is fun!
Salience
Look Starry is blicking! Watch Starry blicking!
Training
Spin over

Look Starry is blicking! Watch Starry blicking!
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Design cont. TEST TRIALS
Test trial 1
Bend over spin past
Where is Starry blicking?
Test trial 2
Where is Starry blicking?
Test trial 3
Mutual exclusivity
Where is Starry hirshing?
Test trial 4
Recovery
Where is Starry blicking?
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Results

• No age differences
• Children with more relational words looked
  significantly longer to the PATH even though
  English tends to have MANNER verbs
• English-speaking 5-year-olds and adults all chose
  MANNER as the referent for blicking.

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Study Can we make toddlers approach verb
learning like English speaking adults?
Method Preferential Looking Participants 30
children, 2 ages (2 and 2.5 years)
Question Do multiple instances of same
MANNER (spinning) across different PATHS (around,
under) bias children to assume that a novel verb
labels MANNER?
NOTE the only difference in this study is in the
training video which now shows 4 different PATHS,
one MANNER. The training audio remains, See,
Starry blicking.
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Results Nothing!

• No age effects
• No vocabulary effects
• Significance Seeing multiple instances is not
  enough to sway young language learners to a
  MANNER bias for verb meaning

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Will anything cause children to interpret a novel
verb as labeling the MANNER of an event?
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Study Adding rich syntax Adding sentences to
last study
Method Preferential Looking Participants 30
children, 2 ages (2 and 2.5 years)
Question Can toddlers use syntax
multiple instances to discern that the verb is
labeling MANNER?
NOTE The only difference in this and the last
study is in the training which now adds syntactic
information, Look, Starry is blicking around
(under, past) the ball!
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Results

• No age effects
• Large vocabulary effects! The higher relational
  vocabulary children now assume that the word
  labels the MANNER.

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Discussion

• As predicted Children map verbs onto the most
  salient universal action concepts (PATH over
  MANNER, as suggested in the perception studies)
• What helps English-speaking children move from a
  reliance on PATH to a language-specific reliance
  on MANNER? Syntax and/or multiple instances.
• For children with higher relational vocabularies
  sentences that block the PATH interpretation,
  yield adult-like performance.

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Part 4 Given the data, how do we begin to
explain the paradox?Verbs ARE hard to learn(at
least in the lab), but children have them in
their earliest vocabularies

• Musings that need your input!

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Imagine that verb learning occurs on a
developmental continuum? (Gentner, 2001)

• Perceptually based
• Specific context
• Social intent is clear
• Rich language input
• Extension limited

Contextually impoverished Reduced language
input Social intent ambiguous Extension even
metaphorical
18 mo.
4 yrs.
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Evidence suggests that Early Verb Learning

• is context bound and used in situations where all
  the cues for verb usage (perceptual,linguistic,
  and social) overlap
• -Behrend, Forbes Farrar studies - Young verb
  learners
• very conservative in their extensions
• -Tomasello verb island hypothesis One verb at
  a time.
• This is exemplified in Chinese early verb use.
• Tardiff Children begin with more focused narrow
  verbs,
• associated with particular and consistent
  routines or social contexts
• (e.g., hug, kiss )

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LATER Verb Learning is of two forms.

• 2.5 - 3 years - children can learn novel verbs
  and extend them with syntactic (or perhaps
  social) support (Maguire, 2003 Fischer, Naigles)
  BUT only in limited, related contexts (e.g, , you
  can substitute the agent but not the instrument)
• 5-7 years - rapid extension to new situations
  is observed, the meaning of the verb is lifted
  from its originally learned context and become
  truly relational.

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Why the paradox?

• While toddlers look like they have some verbs
  early, when pressed in laboratory research, their
  limitations become clear.
• Only older, late preschool children can represent
  the abstract relations between language and
  events. These children are no longer bound to
  context. E.g., Hammering can even be done
  without a hammer.

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This raises the question Why cant the youngest
children learn verbs that are context free? The
learning problem is not with

• discriminating or categorizing relations in
  non-linguistic events (studies by Pulverman et
  al., Pruden et al.).
• forming mappings between language and aspects of
  the real world -- lots of work with nouns (e.g.,
  Hollich et al.)
• or even with recognizing which element in the
  sentence is the verb (Golinkoff et al.,
  sensitivity to /ing/ 16-18 months)

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Rather, the problem might be that verb learning
requires the ability to abstract relations across
multiple domains.

As Gentner (2003) argued As similarity
comparisons evolve from being perceptual and
context bound to becoming increasingly sensitive
to common relational structure, children show an
increasing capacity to reason at the level of
abstract commonalities and rules. (p. 201)
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Verb learning might not be just about verbs, it
might be about the ability to reason about
relationships.
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Indeed, there are suggestive parallels in the
mastery of verb learning and in

• Number development
• Huttenlocher
• The development of analogy
• (Ratterman Gentner, 1998, 2002 Lowenstein
  Gentner)
• Even in relational noun development
• Island (Keil)
• Passenger (Hall Waxman)

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We dont want to stretch this too far. Yet, we do
want to leave you with some interesting final
thoughts

• Adult-like verb learning is really, really,
  really, hard for children.
• And it is hard even though, children seem to have
  the prerequisites that should enable them to use
  verbs productively
• We believe that part of the problem is that to
  learn a verb, children have to coordinate
  information about relations across contexts and
  domains ( language, social perceptual)
• And that this coordination across relations might
  prove a stumbling block in language learning and
  in other aspects of cognition

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Perhaps Piaget got the picture when he suggested
that young children had difficulty dealing with
relations prior to age 5.