ABSTRACT
M any recent studies of early lexical acquisition have addressed the induc-tion problem. How do children associate new words with appropriate referents out of the many possibilities available? Quine’s (1964) question of referential indeterminacy is particularly intriguing in the context of Mayan languages. How do children learning Tzotzil know that a verb like lo’ ‘eat soft food,’ or ve’ ‘eat.corn or grain-based food’ refers to the action of eating food with such characteristics and does not refer to the food itself (a banana or a tortilla)? Or how do adults know that when young children use these verbs as bare roots they refer to an action and not to an object?
