Abstract

RODRIGUES, Jaqueline de Carvalho; TONIETTO, Lauren; SPERB, Tania Mara  and  PARENTE, Maria Alice de Mattos Pimenta. Conventionality in verb acquisition: a comparative study of dichotomic and continuous analysis. Psic.: Teor. e Pesq. [online]. 2012, vol.28, n.1, pp. 77-85. ISSN 0102-3772.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-37722012000100010.

Conventionality is a pragmatic principle of lexical acquisition which makes the adequacy of words to the context possible. The aim of this study was to compare dichotomic and continuous analysis in the classification of this pragmatic principle. The data were obtained by an actions naming task composed of 17 brief videos, applied to 37 children aged between 2:0 and 3:0 and 43 children aged between 3:1 and 4:5. Two analyses were compared: (1) dichotomic - verbs classified as non conventional or conventional; and (2) continuous, scores between 1 and 5, obtained using a Likert scale. The results showed that the two kinds of analysis distinguish the age groups, although the continuous analysis presents advantages, revealing more details about the verbs lexical development.

Keywords : conventionality; lexical acquisition; verbs; children; Likert scale.