Count Nouns, Adjectives, and Perceptual Properties in Children's Novel Word Interpretations

Three-year-old children were shown a novel exemplar toy and asked to judge test items that differed from the exemplar in shape, coloration, or material substance. In the count noun condition, children judged whether test items had the same novel name as the exemplar. In the adjective condition, children judged whether a test item could be described by the same novel adjective as the exemplar. The results of 3 experiments indicated that children systematically attend to shape in interpreting novel count nouns, but their interpretation of adjectives is contextually determined.