Semantic bootstrapping

Semantic bootstrapping in linguistics refers to the hypothesis that children utilize conceptual knowledge to create grammatical categories when acquiring their first language. Thus, for example, categories like "type of object/person" maps directly onto the linguistic category "noun", category like "action" onto "verb", etc. This will get children started on their way to acquiring parts of speech, which later can be supplemented by other linguistic information. The hypothesis received some support from the experiments that showed that three- to five-year-olds do, in fact, generally use nouns for things and verbs for actions more often than adults do. However, syntactic bootstrapping and learning from distributional patterns of the language have also been proposed as a way for children to acquire word-classes.

This concept is also used in the study of adult learners of a second language in much the same way.

Psychological Basis

Neural Basis

Visual and Aural Basis

Significant Differences Between Children and Adults

Semantic Bootstrapping among the Deaf and Blind