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Copyright of University of Sharjah Journal of Sharia & Islamic Studies (JSIS) is the property of University of Sharjah - Scientific Publishing Unit and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Semantic feature production norms have several desirable characteristics that have supported models of representation and processing in adults. However, several key challenges have limited the use of semantic feature norms in studies of early language acquisition. First, existing norms provide uneven and inconsistent coverage of early-acquired concepts that are typically produced and assessed in children under the age of three, which is a time of tremendous growth of early vocabulary skills. Second, it is difficult to assess the degree to which young children may be familiar with normed features derived from these adult-generated datasets. Third, it has been difficult to adopt standard methods to generate semantic network models of early noun learning. Here, we introduce Feats—a tool that was designed to make headway on these challenges by providing a database, the Language Learning and Meaning Acquisition (LLaMA) lab Noun Norms that extends a widely used set of feature norms McRae et al. Behavior Research Methods37, 547–559, (2005) to include full coverage of noun concepts on a commonly used early vocabulary assessment. Feats includes several tools to facilitate exploration of features comprising early-acquired nouns, assess the developmental appropriateness of individual features using toddler-accessibility norms, and extract semantic network statistics for individual vocabulary profiles. We provide a tutorial overview of Feats. We additionally validate our approach by presenting an analysis of an overlapping set of concepts collected across prior and new data collection methods. Furthermore, using network graph analyses, we show that the extended set of norms provides novel, reliable results given their enhanced coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PurposeAlthough a semantic receptive-expressive gap appears to be a universal feature of early bilingualism, little is known about its development. We sought to determine if the magnitude of the discrepancy between receptive and expressive standard scores changed over time in bilingual children's two languages.MethodIn this longitudinal study, standardized receptive and expressive semantics tests of 106 Spanish-English bilingual children with TD were taken at kindergarten and first grade in both English and Spanish. We used a multivariate analysis approach to identify interactions and main effects.ResultsAlthough both receptive and expressive standard scores improved across the year in both languages, the magnitude of the gap was similar for both languages at both time points. However, there was greater improvement in English than in Spanish. Expressive scores at the end of the year were similar to receptive scores a year earlier.ConclusionsThe magnitude of this gap remains relatively constant at kindergarten and first grade in both English and Spanish, despite overall improvements in semantic performance in both languages. There is on average roughly a one year lag between receptive and expressive semantics skills. Clinicians should take caution in interpreting receptive-expressive semantic gaps.

Copyright of Al-Adab / Al-ādāb is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

В статье исследуются аспекты возникновения и лексическое развитие аббревиатур «ДАИШ» и «ИГИЛ» в русском и арабском языках и новых лексем, созданных на их базе, а также лингвистические и экстралингвистические особенности современного арабского и русского языков, отраженные в интернет-текстах общественно-политической тематики. Проведен сопоставительный анализ словообразовательных особенностей, орфографических признаков и семантических функций аббревиатур «ДАИШ» и «ИГИЛ» в русскоязычных и арабоязычных текстах. Описываются случаи употребления данных аббревиатур и производных от них слов в переносных значениях. Факты такого применения свидетельствуют о явной тенденции метафорического использования аббревиатур «ДАИШ» и «ИГИЛ», а также образованных от них лексем в значениях, несущих отрицательную семантику. Отмечаются особенности использования и этнокультурная специфика исконной арабской аббревиатуры в русскоязычных текстах общественно-политической направленности. На основе образцов современных арабских и русских текстов в исследовании определяются синонимичность значений и отсутствие омонимичного звучания и написания термина «ДАИШ» в этих двух языках. Историческое прогресс исконной аббревиатуры «ДАИШ» отличается динамичностью. Исследуемый материал отражает стабильный вариант графического написания в арабском языке. Наблюдается также повышение коммуникативно-прагматической значимости арабской аббревиатуры «ДАИШ» наряду с русской по причине частого использования лексемы для придания негативно-оценочного характера значения, немаловажную роль играют и образованные от данной языковой единицы слова. Отмечается активность словообразовательных процессов с использованием в качестве корневых морфем аббревиатур «ДАИШ» и «ИГИЛ», а также переход данных слов и их производных из узкой сферы употребления в число широкоупотребляемых лексем с переносным значением – с сохранением отрицательной семантики.

Copyright of Journal of Arabic Language Sciences & Literature / Maǧallaẗ ʻUlūm Al-Luġaẗ Al-ʻArabiyyaẗ Wa-Ādābi-hā is the property of Arab Journal of Sciences & Research Publishing (AJSRP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The original meaning of many modern Kazakh words of Arabic-Iranian origin is associated with ethical categories, spiritual and moral values. In this study aimed at identifying a layer of words borrowed by the Kazakh language from the Arabic and Iranian languages, and investigating their semantic development a descriptive method and methods of lexicographic and lexico-semantic analyses of words were applied. The study results demonstrated that the semantic development of Muslim terms in the Kazakh language included reinterpretation, and their acquisition of new meanings in the Kazakh literary language. Desacralization of religious concepts signified by these words occurred in the languages from which these words were later borrowed by the Kazakh language.

Although words for human body parts appear early in children's vocabulary, relatively little is known about the conceptual and semantic development related to the body part words in preschool and early school ages. In this paper, we examine how children at ages 5, 7 and 9 use words and expressions to refer to the human body and its parts, and how these correspond to the segmentation and lexicalization of the body part terms in adults. Participants were asked to name the body parts that were depicted in the drawings showing the whole body (front or back) and the face, with a red dot marking the specific part. The results of the comparison between children and adults indicate that for the most parts of arms, legs, and face there is a gradual conceptual segmentation of body with age, reflected in a decrease in the use of holonyms and an increase in the use of meronyms in naming parts. However, such hierarchical organization could not be confirmed for other parts (trunk, shoulders, neck, head, some parts of the face), revealing different pathways in the acquisition of words. Children of all ages, especially 7and 9-year-olds, seek alternative solutions for naming the body parts for which labels are missing in their vocabulary. In such cases, they name adjacent body parts, internal organs, and parts of the skeleton, or use prepositional phrases to refer to the surrounding areas. The results are compared with the findings of the previous studies, while the lexical-semantic change in the body parts terms and the hierarchical organization of the body part lexicon in child language are discussed. The results were compared in light of previous findings of the developmental studies, on the lexical-semantic change, and the hierarchical organization of the body part lexicon in child language.

In New Persian (hereafter NP) there are more than two dozen Arabic borrowings, attested in different dictionaries and partly still using today for the concept of "leader" [8], while most of the words for the same concept in Middle Persian (hereafter MP) are of Iranian origin. The present article introduces and examines the lexemes attested in Middle Persian and Arabic with the meaning "leader, leader, commander". The choice of the Middle Persian language is due to the task of showing the features of the public perception of the concept "leader" and its expressions at the linguistic extent in Sassanid Iran, still free from strong Arab influence. On the other hand, the choice of Arabic is due to the fact that it shows the enormous influence that the Arab world had already in the post-Sassanid period on the Iranians' perception of the concept of "leader", and, consequently, the Arabic language itself, in the level of linguistic thought, in the face of Arabic borrowings to denote the concept of "leader" in NP. The Arabic loanwords in NP, used for the concept of "leader", are presented in the authors' previous paper [8], because of which the present examination is limited in the presentation of the denotants of the concept of "leader" only in Sasanian Middle Persian and Arabic.

Recent years have seen a flourishing of Natural Language Processing models that can mimic many aspects of human language fluency. These models harness a simple, decades‐old idea: It is possible to learn a lot about word meanings just from exposure to language, because words similar in meaning are used in language in similar ways. The successes of these models raise the intriguing possibility that exposure to word use in language also shapes the word knowledge that children amass during development. However, this possibility is strongly challenged by the fact that models use language input and learning mechanisms that may be unavailable to children. Across three studies, we found that unrealistically complex input and learning mechanisms are unnecessary. Instead, simple regularities of word use in children's language input that they have the capacity to learn can foster knowledge about word meanings. Thus, exposure to language may play a simple but powerful role in children's growing word knowledge. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/dT83dmMffnM. Research Highlights: Natural Language Processing (NLP) models can learn that words are similar in meaning from higher‐order statistical regularities of word use.Unlike NLP models, infants and children may primarily learn only simple co‐occurrences between words.We show that infants' and children's language input is rich in simple co‐occurrence that can support learning similarities in meaning between words.We find that simple co‐occurrences can explain infants' and children's knowledge that words are similar in meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of the current research is on examining the lexical definition within the lexicon of eloquence in Al-Baha, spanning from the Alif letter to the Dhaal letter. The study involves a comprehensive exploration of the patterns and forms employed in this lexicon. The research objectives include identifying the lexicographer's patterns of explanation, assessing their effectiveness, and highlighting any encountered problems in the lexicon's definitions. The research problem centers on understanding the methods the lexicographer utilized in defining entries and tools within this modern lexicon, with an emphasis on tracing the incorporation of contemporary definition methods. Employing a descriptive analytical approach, the research is divided into five main topics: an introduction to the lexicon, its definition, concept, and specifications, methods of definition in the Arabic lexicon, patterns of definition specific to the lexicon of eloquence in Al-Baha, and an examination of any problems in definition within the lexicon. The findings indicate issues such as the author's excessive reliance on ancient quotations, the need for an index for easy searching, mention of words without proven eloquence, a lack of interest in defining using imagery, and attention to the semantic development of words. Recommendations stemming from the research advocate for further exploration by researchers into the semantic development within this lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Scientific Development for Studies & Research (JSD) is the property of Journal of Scientific Development for Studies & Research (JSD) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One proposal that can explain the remarkable pace of word learning in young children is that they leverage the language-internal distributional similarity of familiar and novel words to make analogical inferences about possible meanings of novel words (Lany and Gómez, 2008; Lany and Saffran, 2011; Savic et al., 2022b; Unger and Fisher, 2021; Wojcik and Saffran, 2015). However, a cognitively and developmentally plausible computational account of how language-internal lexical representations are acquired to enable this kind of analogical inference has not been previously investigated. In this work, we tested the feasibility of using the SRN (Elman, 1990) as the supplier of language-internal representations for use in analogical inference. While the SRN is in many ways well suited to this task, we discuss several theoretical challenges that might limit its success. In a series of simulations with controlled artificial languages and the CHILDES corpus, we show that Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) are prone to acquiring ‘entangled’ lexical semantic representations, where some features of a word are partially encoded in the representations of other frequently co-occurring words. However, we also show that this problem is mitigated when RNNs are first trained on language input to young children, due to the fact that its distributional structure more reliably predicts semantic category membership of individual words. Overall, our work sheds light on the conditions under which RNNs organize their learned knowledge so that word-level information can be more easily extracted and used in downstream processes, such as word learning.

Many hallmarks of human intelligence including language,reasoning, and planning require us to draw upon knowledge aboutthe world in which concepts, denoted by words, are organized bymeaningful, semantic links between them (e.g., juicy-apple-pear).The goal of the present research was to investigate how theseorganized semantic networks may emerge in development fromsimple but powerful mechanisms sensitive to statistical co-occurrence regularities of word use in language. Specifically, wetested whether a mechanistic account of how co-occurrenceregularities shape semantic development accurately predicts howsemantic organization changes with development. Using asensitive, gaze-based measure of the semantic links organizingknowledge in children and adults, we observed thatdevelopmental changes in semantic organization were consistentwith a key role for statistical co-occurrence regularities.

The researcher seeks to study the adjectives Al-Muzammil and Al-Muddathir, a linguistic study within the phonetic, morphological and semantic levels to find out the sound similarity of the two words or semantic development: horizontal or vertical, up to the purposes of the Qur'anic discourse among the commentators, seeking to find out the reason for using the two formulas in the divine discourse by abandoning the use of direct appeal by the explicit name or title of the Prophet or Messenger, and the researcher seeks to root the two words to their origins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our knowledge of the world is an organized lexico-semanticnetwork in which concepts can be linked by relations, such as“taxonomic” relations between members of the same stablecategory (e.g., cat and sheep), or association between entitiesthat occur together or in the same context (e.g., sock andfoot). Prior research has focused on the emergence ofknowledge about taxonomic relations, whereas associationhas received little attention. The goal of the present researchwas to investigate how semantic organization development isshaped by both taxonomic relatedness and associations basedon co-occurrence between labels for concepts in language.Using a Cued Recall paradigm, we found a substantialinfluence of co-occurrence in both 4-5-year-olds and adults,whereas taxonomic relatedness only influenced adults. Theseresults demonstrate a critical and persistent influence of co-occurrence associations on semantic organization. We discussthese findings in relation to theories of semantic development.

Abstract Background Bilingualism is the phenomenon of speaking and understanding two languages. The increased representation of bilingual populations calls for in-depth studies of bilingualism. The aim of this work is to devise an assessment protocol that could help in evaluating some aspects of Arabic and English languages acquired in typically developing bilingual preschool Egyptian children as a preliminary attempt to comprehend the language profiles of both languages in the studied group. The study was conducted on 80 bilingual Egyptian preschool male and female children exposed to both Arabic and English languages. Their age ranged from 4 to 4 years and 11 months from international English schools with regular attendance and of normal Arabic language development. All were subjected to the designed Bilingual English-Arabic semantic test, and narrative assessment and their parents and teachers filled in the questionnaires addressing the variables affecting both languages’ acquisition. Results Bilingual English-Arabic Semantic and Narration Tests revealed that children under the study had variable development in some aspects in semantic and narration between both languages and according to their age. Conclusions Data gathered from the study can be considered a preliminary nucleus for identification of the bilingual children’s normative data to be able to pick up the cases with language impairment of bilingual children and help in making diagnostic decisions and planning for future intervention.

Semantics, as part of speech development in humans, is necessary for acquiring the logical-pragmatic level of language. This is achieved, by acquiring the ability to think outside of specific reality, reasoning relationships, operating with symbols, using metaphors and abstract concepts. The main objective of the research is to examine all the semantic categories and their level of development in children with mild intellectual disabilities in comparison with typical children. In this research, a total of 62 respondents were aged 12 to 14. The experimental group consisted of 31 subjects with mild intellectual disabilities. The control group consisted of children with normal intellectual abilities. The examination was done by using the "Semantic Test" by Spasenija Vladisavljević, which was adapted for the Macedonian-speaking population. Results showed that there is a connection between the acquisition of homonyms and the level of intellectual development. Antonyms are accomplished only for words with concrete meaning. Acquisition of synonyms is related to intellectual development and vocabulary richness. The research concluded that the children with mild intellectual disabilities in our research partially, and with poor representations, acquire homonyms, antonyms, and synonyms and do not acquire metonyms at all. We recommend more visual support during the speech therapy and educational process. The results of this study will be of interest to multiple audiences (including patients, their families, caregivers, healthcare professionals, researchers, scientists, and decision-makers). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the semantic development of Proto‑Slavic *lichъ. This adjective has many disparate meanings in Slavonic languages which have predominantly developed from the Proto‑Slavic meaning ‘odd, uneven’. The concept of ‘oddness, unevenness’ was mostly viewed as something undesirable and harmful which is reflected by meanings like ‘needless, futile, vain, wretched, evil, ominous etc.’. There is, however, also a group of positive meanings in Slavic languages, such as ‘free, daring, high‑spirited, skilful, famous’. The semantic shift to these meanings has not been satisfactorily explained. We suggest a development via the meanings ‘free from sth, singular’ (partially attested in Old Church Slavonic and some other Slavic languages) as one of the possible directions of semantic development of *lichъ from which the aforementioned positive meanings could be explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to Kidd and Garcia's survey that shows the paucity of authors and languages from the Global South in four leading journals of language acquisition, I argue that Mayan language acquisition has contributed in important ways to test theories in the field at large. I specifically outline major contributions from Mayan Tzotzil acquisition to topics of input, lexical, semantic and morphological development. Research on Mesoamerican languages is invaluable in understanding the implications of linguistic typology in language acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the position of the noun mantl (from the German Mantel) and its derivatives on the peripery of the Czech lexical system; the author points out the new discovered meaning recorded in the folk song from the late 18th century. The seemingly disparate semantic spectrum of the lexeme (,coat'; ,intrigues'; ,illegitimate child') is caused by its repeated discontinuous borrowing from German, each time in a different meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and prayers and peace be upon the seal of the prophets and messengers, Muhammad, and upon his good and pure family, and upon his chosen companions until the Day of Judgment... God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. The expansion of the meanings of linguistic words, prompted me to study this phenomenon in the book Al-Wasat fi Tafsir Al-Quran Al-Majid by Al- Wahidi (468 AH). The research stands on the opinions of those who denied this phenomenon and those who supported it and the reasons for the existence of this phenomenon. And from God is a success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Islamic Studiens Magazine is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Sensitivity to statistical co-occurrence regularities is presentfrom infancy. This sensitivity may contribute to learning inmany domains, including category learning. However, priorresearch has not examined whether everyday input conveyscategory-relevant statistical regularities. This study assessedwhether statistical regularities relevant to real-world categoriesare present in a commonly experienced source input –children’s picture books. We focused on animal categoriesbecause this is a domain in which children receive muchexposure from an early age, while simultaneously holdingpersistent misconceptions about category membership beyondpreschool years. Analysis of 80 books revealed that they: 1)Were likely to contain regularities from which individualspecies categories (e.g., “chicken”) might be learned, but 2)Were unlikely to contain regularities from which broadertaxonomic categories (e.g., “bird”) might be learned. Thesefindings point to a paucity of taxonomically-relevant statisticalregularities that may contribute to persistent taxonomicmisconceptions.

The organization of knowledge according to relations betweenconcepts is critically involved in many cognitive processes,including memory and reasoning. However, the role oflearning in shaping knowledge organization has received littledirect investigation. Therefore, the present study investigatedwhether informal learning experiences can drive rapid,substantial changes in knowledge organization in children bymeasuring the effects of a week-long Zoo summer camp versusa control camp on the degree to which 4- to 9-year-oldchildren’s knowledge about animals was organized accordingto taxonomic relations. Although taxonomic organization didnot differ at pre-test, only Zoo camp children showed increasesin taxonomic organization at post-test. These findings providenovel evidence that informal, real-life learning experiences candrive rapid knowledge organization change.

The article deals with West Slavonic words on cud‑ represented by verbs such as Old Czech cúditi, Polish cudzić or adjectives such as Czech cudný, Polish cudny, czudny. These words are not etymologically clear, and the etymological dictionaries suggest different solutions, either considering these words as cognates or looking for other etymological connections. More light on the issue could be thrown by Old Church Slavonic študь ‘custom, manners, morals’ which has not been taken into account so far while reflecting the etymologies of the abovementioned words. Old Church Slavonic word corresponds to older Czech cud ‘discipline, good manners’ and this noun (in its late Proto‑Slavonic form) can be taken as a basis for the verb (Old Czech cúditi etc.) in the meaning ‘to clean, brush, remove’ and the adjective (Czech cudný etc.) in the meaning ‘chaste, modest, moral’. The Proto‑Slavonic root of the word can be reconstructed as *tjud‑ from Pre‑Slavonic *teud‑ which can be traced back to Indo‑European *teuH ‘to protect, friendly give one’s mind to sb.’. Nominal derivatives of this root offer striking semantic parallels in Germanic: Old English geđiede ‘good, decent, chaste’, đēaw ‘custom, manners, morals’, Old High German, Old Saxon thau ‘discipline’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Thi Qar Arts Journal is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Larq Journal for Philosophy, Linguistics & Social Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the motivation and the functioning of two phraseological units in the Polish language, namely leżeć bykiem (to idle lazily) and leżeć martwym bykiem (to be resting idly). Resulting from independent derivations, they appeared in the Polish language in the second half of the twentieth century. Due to formal similarity, though, they quickly developed relations which led to the transformations of their meaning and form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that early interaction can be seen as comprising of strands of coordinated activity on multiple levels and timescales. In tracing the development of such multilayered organization from an embodied and situated perspective, we underscore the role of the reliable presence of the structured environment, an enacted niche, supporting the segregation and integration of participatory interaction strands. This perspective allows us to study the development of social coordination not only in terms of development of individual skills but, crucially, as a change of participatory emergent patterns, a transformation in engagement. We illustrate this approach with some results from the collaborative research project on Early Semantic Development (EASE). Using qualitative microanalysis combined with quantitative dynamical time series analyses, we were able to demonstrate several layers of such organization: from local forms of coordination, such as basic informational coupling within a modality, and the emergence of specific social affordances, to more global co-action structures such as affect imbued ‘action arcs’ – dynamic action contours with a beginning, build-up, climax and resolution, co-enacted by participants. Pointing to future work, we underscore the potential of these global structures to contribute to the emergence of more complex interactions, such as composite activities within ‘pragmatic frames’, narratives, or language.

Copyright of Djoussour El-maarefa is the property of Association of Arab Universities and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The organization of our knowledge about the world into an interconnected network of concepts linked by relations profoundly impacts many facets of cognition, including attention, memory retrieval, reasoning, and learning. It is therefore crucial to understand how organized semantic representations are acquired. The present experiment investigated the contributions of readily observable environmental statistical regularities to semantic organization in childhood. Specifically, we investigated whether co‐occurrence regularities with which entities or their labels more reliably occur together than with others (a) contribute to relations between concepts independently and (b) contribute to relations between concepts belonging to the same taxonomic category. Using child‐directed speech corpora to estimate reliable co‐occurrences between labels for familiar items, we constructed triads consisting of a target, a related distractor, and an unrelated distractor in which targets and related distractors consistently co‐occurred (e.g., sock‐foot), belonged to the same taxonomic category (e.g., sock‐coat), or both (e.g., sock‐shoe). We used an implicit, eye‐gaze measure of relations between concepts based on the degree to which children (N = 72, age 4–7 years) looked at related versus unrelated distractors when asked to look for a target. The results indicated that co‐occurrence both independently contributes to relations between concepts and contributes to relations between concepts belonging to the same taxonomic category. These findings suggest that sensitivity to the regularity with which different entities co‐occur in children's environments shapes the organization of semantic knowledge during development. Implications for theoretical accounts and empirical investigations of semantic organization are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is dedicated to a close analysis of the semantic development of the lexeme gildia. The author considered etymological data, lexicographic information (from historical and contemporary general dictionaries), as well as textual data (from the corpus and the Internet). From the etymological perspective, the lexeme gildia is derived from the same source as giełda, but the words were dissimilated and functioned as separate units. Lexicographic data indicate that the word giełda is used in general Polish in a few meanings, while the word gildia – as ‘merchants’ association’ and ‘merchants’ class’ and is contemporarily regarded as a historicism, however, it is still present in new contexts. It is used as a component of proper names from the field of social chrematonymy (in names of associations) and marketing chrematonymy (in names of companies). Moreover, the lexeme gildia acquires a new additional meaning in specialist vocabulary of computer players. The development of the word discussed is an example of broader trends which are visible in the lexis of contemporary Polish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of the article is the semantic development of the words premiera and premierowy. Most dictionaries of the Polish language note only one meaning of the lexeme premiera: ‘the first performance of a dramatic work; also: the first screening of a new film’. Premierowy is defined as an ‘adjective from the premiere’. It turns out, however, that in the contemporary Polish language these two words function in new meanings. Premiera is sometimes used to name any activities and things performed for the first time. The word also has an objective meaning: ‘object first shown publicly or put up for sale; novelty’. Premierowy is, inter alia ‘occupying in a certain order or place a position that can be described using the number 1; first’, ‘the best, the most important, superior to others in some way’, ‘one that has recently been created; new’, ‘the one that replaces something previously fulfilling a given function; new’. The semantic development of these lexemes is probably the result of the influence of English, but semantic changes in Polish are also possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether singular/plural marking in a language helps children learn the meanings of the words 'one,' 'two,' and 'three.' First, CHILDES data in English, Russian (which marks singular/plural), and Japanese (which does not) were compared for frequency, variability, and contexts of number-word use. Then young children in the USA, Russia, and Japan were tested on Counting and Give-N tasks. More English and Russian learners knew the meaning of each number word than Japanese learners, regardless of whether singular/plural cues appeared in the task itself (e.g., "Give two apples" vs. "Give two"). These results suggest that the learning of "one," "two" and "three" is supported by the conceptual framework of grammatical number, rather than that of integers. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Between 6 and 9 years of age, children's free associations shift from syntagmatic to paradigmatic relationships. Syntagmatic relations are words that are syntactically adjacent, thematically related (summer-vacation), or both; paradigmatic relations are words from the same grammatical class, taxonomic category (summer-winter), or both. Infant researchers have reliably found evidence for the activation of paradigmatic relationships by 24 months. Because of a lack of data from children aged 3 to 5 years, the developmental trajectory of paradigmatic relations is unclear. With age-appropriate stimuli, this work is among the first to collect free association data for children under 5. Children (n = 60; age range = 3-8 years) and adults (n = 60; age range = 18 to 43 years) were instructed to respond to a prime word with the first word that came to mind. Unifying the data from previous studies with infants and older children, our data suggest that paradigmatic relations are present in early childhood but also increase in prevalence with age. Several exploratory analyses revealed that younger children gave more varied responses, suggesting that early lexical-semantic networks are more idiosyncratic. We also found preliminary evidence that responses varied by grammatical class and gender across age groups, with implications for both theory and experimental design. By continuing data collection across the life span and making the dataset public, future work will further elucidate the development of lexical-semantic networks from early childhood onward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concepts (i.e. lexicalised classes of real or fictitious entities) play a central role in many human intellectual activities, including planning, thinking, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. How do people acquire concepts in the course of development and learning and use them in their thinking about the world? In this article, we attempt to provide an overview of conceptual development. We suggest that concepts can originate (1) in interactions with the world and get lexicalised later or (2) in the language and get grounded later. The first route is from category learning to a concept, and we discuss this route by focusing on the mechanisms of category learning and developmental changes in these mechanisms. The second route is from a word to a concept, and we discuss this route by focusing on inferring word meanings without visual referents. We then consider proposals of how concepts get organised into networks and hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors conducted three experiments examining the effect of grouping on children's generalization of animal labels. In Experiment 1 (N = 96), first graders (M age = 6 years, 10 months) who had seen a novel animal grouped with similar animals generalized its trained label more broadly than those who had seen it by itself or grouped with dissimilar animals. Generalization of artifact labels was unaffected by condition. In Experiment 2, 4-year-olds (N = 96) also showed this pattern, but 3-year-olds (N = 96) showed no effects. In Experiment 3 (N = 48), 4-year-olds again showed the effect for animal labels in a design that eliminated alternatives to a grouping explanation. At least by age 4, children tend to judge that members of a group of similar animals belong to the same category, and this judgment affects how they interpret a label that is introduced for a member of the group. Explanations for why children tend to make these judgments and the implications for accounts of children's word learning are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Umm Al-Qura University Journal for Languages & Literature is the property of Association of Arab Universities and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)