Height, age, and function: differing influences on children's comprehension of ‘younger’ and ‘older’

Abstract

Three investigations of pre-school children's comprehension ofyoungerandolderare discussed. The results suggest that children focus on height (or the lack of the same) in their initial hypotheses about the meanings of the terms, ignoring age and/or function cues. The results also suggest that the acquisition of antonyms which may be characterized as marked–unmarked is not necessarily characterized by the child equating the meaning of the marked and unmarked terms prior to learning the correct meaning of the marked term. These findings are discussed in terms of recent theorizing about lexical-meaning acquisition.