ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR Volume 27 This Page Intentionally Left Blank ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR edited by Hayne W. Reese Department of Psychology West Virginia University Morgantown, West Virginia Volume 27 ACADEMIC PRESS San Diego London Boston New York Sydney Tokyo Toronto This book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright © 2000 by ACADEMIC PRESS All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. The appearance of the code at the bottom of the first page of a chapter in this book indicates the Publisher’s consent that copies of the chapter may be made for personal or internal use of specific clients. This consent is given on the condition, however, that the copier pay the stated per copy fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923), for copying beyond that permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law. This consent does not extend to other kinds of copying, such as copying for general distribution, for advertising or promotional purposes, for creating new collective works, or for resale. Copy fees for pre-1999 chapters are as shown on the title pages. If no fee code appears on the title page, the copy fee is the same as for current chapters. 0065-2407/00 $30.00 Explicit permission from Academic Press is not required to reproduce a maximum of two figures or tables from an Academic Press article in another scientific or research publication provided that the material has not been credited to another source and that full credit to the Academic Press article is given. Academic Press A Harcourt Science and Technology Company 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, California 92101-4495, USA http://www.apnet.com Academic Press 24-28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DX, UK http://www.hbuk.co.uk/ap/ International Standard Book Number: 0-12-009727-3 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 99 00 01 02 03 04 BB 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix From Form to Meaning: A Role for Structural Alignment in the Acquisition of Language CYNTHIA FISHER I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. Syntactic Bootstrapping: How Does It Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. The Construction of Partial Sentence Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. Conclusions: Verb Learning and Thematic Roles Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 30 42 46 The Role of Essentialism in Children’s Concepts SUSAN A. GELMAN I. Introduction .