Under and Overextensions in

meaning acquisition
Summary by Florencia Rocca
What is meaning
acquisition?
 ACQUISITION
The process of learning skills or getting knowledge

MEANING
ACQUISITION
Learning a language without being taught, that
starts at a very young age, which is meaningful.
Our knowledge of the meaning of a
sentence depends on
LEXICAL
COMPONENTS

SYNTACTIC
GRAMMATICAL
COMPONENTS
IT ALSO DEPEND ON VARIOUS
CONTEXTUAL FACTORS

The use of pronouns requires that the speaker and hearer share
a common knowledge of who she is.
CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE
 Between 18
months and five OVEREXTENSION AND

years old, UNDEREXTENSION ARE TWO

COMMON TECHNICAL ERRORS
THAT CHILDREN WILL
a vocabulary explosion will occur
CERTAINLY MAKE.
quickly and exponentially.
Underextension in
Meaning Acquisition
Underextension = Simplification
In early language, young children underextend the meaning of a word, not
using it as broadly as an adult might. They use lexical items in an overly
restrictive way.

FOR EXAMPLE

A child might use the word SHOES only to refer to MOMMY’S SHOES (a
specific pair of shoes) because it was in that context that he or she first
learned that word.

Or the word DOG might be used to refer to only the family dog, but not to
any other dogs.
Underextension mistakes often reflect children's propensity
to focus on prototypical or core members of a category.

The potential referents of many words differ in terms of how well

they exemplify the properties associated with a particular concept.

Thus, among the potential referents of the word 'dog', some dogs'
breeds have more of the properties associated with the concept
‘dog’ (long hair, relative size, type of bark, and so on).
FOR EXAMPLE
Some children might recognise
a collie or a golden as 'dogs'
due to their similar properties
while a chihuahua might not.

_______________________________
It is clear that the internal
structure of concepts can have
an important influence on
semantic development.
Overextensions in
Meaning Acquisition
Children often appear to overextend the meaning
of words, too...
This means... Overextensions may be used on...

● Natural kinds
They use words to refer to larger classes of
● Shape
entities than the words label in their target ● Colour
language. ● Function
For instance: ● Material
● Sound
Apple---- apples and other round things as
● Other...
well.
Overextensions may be used on...
Natural Shape Colour Function Material Sound
Kinds

Kitten: used Cookie: used Fly: used for Open: used Scissors: Music from a
to refer to for specks of for peeling, used for all piano: violin
all four- moon, dirt. opening a metal or accordion.
legged button. box, objects.
animals. Book: Diary, opening
Daddy: used address book. doors.
for all men.

Other: Size, taste, movement, texture, action...

Children often appear to overextend the meaning
of words
The range of parameters on which
children overextend the words they use
demonstrates their awareness of the many
aspects of referents that are part of their
designation and thus possession of the
concepts for all of these attributes.
this shows…
The Principle of Categorial Scope in
operation
It asserts that overextensions will apply only
to members of the same category and not to
thematically related items.
For instance--- Balloon, ball (not cake or
presents)
But…
...The principles suggested to guide word
learning do not answer the question as to
why children overextend the meanings of
words in their vocabulary. Different
explanations have been offered to explain
semantic overextensions. A widely-held
view is that children have very limited
vocabularies and simply do not know the
words they need at the moment.
The Semantic Feature Theory
Is consistent with this view. It suggests that word
meanings consist of features, and that as children
learn more vocabulary, individual definitions are
refined and take on more features. In this way, two
things that at one point would be designated by the
same word, at a later point would be appropriately
labeled by two distinct words, and so on.
For example: a child’s use of bow wow to refer to
many four-legged animals, not just to dogs, would
reflect a semantic representation, like:
-Bow wow +animal +four legs
 Lexical Item First Meaning Extensions Shared Semantic
Property

Bow wow Dog Dogs, cows, horses, Shape: four-legged

sheep, cat.

Cookie Cookie Moon, button Shape

Fly Fly Specks of dirt, dust, Shape

all small insects

Kiki Cat Any soft material Texture

But... ...As the child’s lexicon develops, this entry would take on more features,
differentiating it from other lexical items. For instance...

Bow wow VS Kitty VS Cow

+animal +animal +animal
+four legs +four legs +four legs
+barks +meows +moos
+lives in people’s homes +lives in people’s homes +lives in farms
References