ABSTRACT
This chapter extends work on the principles of noun learning to the acquisition of verbs. argue that verb learning requires four components: scene analysis, semantic analysis, syntactic analysis and last, a set of word learning principles that enable verb learning to proceed efficiently. Mandler developed a theory of both the origin of children's meaning representations and the role of these representations in language acquisition. Bloom's principle of discrepancy states that as the contents of mind become increasingly discrepant from the data of perception children need language to express themselves effectively. Golinkoff et al's developmental lexical principles framework has three clear advantages over prior discussions of word learning principles that do not couch the principles in a developmental perspective. The principle of extendibility transfers readily to the acquisition of labels for actions. Thus, the developmental lexical principles framework can serve as a heuristic for researchers interested in addressing the next hurdle in language acquisition, namely, verb learning.
