In this line of reasoning, the more translation equivalents bilingual children know, the less they use MEC-based disambiguation. In order to be able to learn words in both languages, bilingual children are required and able to violate the mutual exclusivity assumption. Already at 13 months, infants with regular bilingual exposure are surprised when speakers of different languages use the same label for the same object. From the beginnings of word learning, they are used to the fact that objects may have two labels, namely one in each language. Two Fundamentally Different Labeling Experiences: Bilingual and Monolingual First Language AcquisitionД¬hildren with regular bilingual input from birth (Bilingual First Language Acquisition) learn what linguists describe as translation equivalents from very early on. Only two studies consider the effect of bilingual language exposure on MEC-based property term learning (see Section 1.4).ДЎ.2. Studies measuring the MEC contribution to property term learning in isolation are rare. In another study with monolingual four-year-olds using a combination of cues, the MEC cue had a significant influence on property interpretations, but its efficiency was not tested in isolation.

In a task where novel labels were embedded in syntactic contexts ambiguous for adjectives or mass nouns, monolingual four-year-olds showed more property interpretations of novel words when an object was familiar than when it was unknown. For property term learning, the WOC (see above) must be overridden, rendering adjective acquisition more challenging than MEC-based indirect word learning for unfamiliar whole objects (nouns). Candidates are a part of it, its substance, its surface, or other object properties. If the object in focus is familiar to the child and no unknown object is present in the communicative situation, children can search for an alternative referent within the familiar object. This allows monolingual children to indirectly select referents for novel words, in the absence of any explicit hint as to their intended meaning. Since each object should have only one name, monolingual children reject novel labels for known objects and search for alternative referents, a process termed disambiguation. Novel property term learning profits from the assumption that words have mutually exclusive meanings: the Mutual Exclusivity Constraint (MEC). To tackle this challenge, novel adjective learning is facilitated by morphosyntactic markers and descriptive gestures referring to object properties. The learning of adjectives is a particularly challenging word learning task for young children (for a short review, see ). Amongst these are adjectives, that is, terms to refer to properties. Depending on the languages(s) to be acquired, children have to learn word classes other than nouns. This bias is known as the Whole Object Constraint (WOC). Preschoolers generally tend to interpret novel words as nouns for whole objects, instead of mapping a novel word onto an objectвЂ™s property.

The Whole Object Constraint, the Mutual Exclusivity Constraint, and Property Term Learning Taken together, our behavioral and neurophysiological findings reveal different paths towards novel property term learning depending on childrenвЂ™s language acquisition context.ДЎ.1. The data show that, compared to bilinguals, monolinguals reveal higher activation over three brain regions (right frontal, left temporo-parietal, and left prefrontal) that may be involved in exploiting the MEC, building on conflict detection, inhibition, solution of a disjunction, and working memory processes. In the 5-year-olds, we additionally acquired neurophysiological data using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to allow for a first explorative look at potential neuronal underpinnings. Older bilinguals adhered less to the MEC than younger ones, while there was no difference in MEC adherence between the younger and older monolinguals. We found no bilingual-monolingual differences on a behavioral forced-choice task for the 3.5-year-olds, but five-year-old monolinguals adhered more to the MEC than bilinguals did. Shifting the focus to learning novel property terms (adjectives), the present study compared 3.5- and five-year-old bilingual and monolingual preschoolersвЂ™ adherence to the MEC. Studies of novel noun learning show bilingual children rely less on the Mutual Exclusivity Constraint (MEC) for word learning than monolinguals.

Monolingual translation in spanish