Journal article
D. Gentner
2006
2006
Semantic Scholar
DOI
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APA
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Gentner, D. (2006). Why verbs are hard to learn.
Chicago/Turabian
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Gentner, D. “Why Verbs Are Hard to Learn” (2006).
MLA
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Gentner, D. Why Verbs Are Hard to Learn. 2006.
BibTeX Click to copy
@article{d2006a,
title = {Why verbs are hard to learn},
year = {2006},
author = {Gentner, D.}
}
Abstract
Words do not all connect to the world in the same way. Some words basically point and refer to things in the world, while others organize the world into semantic systems and name according to the system. According to the natural partitions hypothesis, the noun class has the privilege of naming the highly cohesive bits of the world, whereas verbs and prepositions have the job of partitioning the leftovers-a diffuse set of largely relational components (Gentner, 1981, 1982; Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001). The contrast between concrete nouns and verbs is in part the contrast between local individuation and individuation as part of a semantic system. As Gentner (1982, p. 324) argued,
