Acquisition of nouns and verbs in Italian pre-school children

Noun and verb acquisition was investigated in three- and five-year-old 14 Italian children by means of picture naming of objects and actions, 15 selected from Druks and Masterson (2000). The aim was to examine 16 the previously reported advantage of nouns compared to verbs. Older 17 children were faster than younger children, and naming latencies were 18 faster for object pictures than for action pictures. For errors, the 19 advantage of objects over actions was greater for younger children. A 20 qualitative analysis of errors was carried out according to a 21 classification derived by Masterson, Druks, and Gallienne (2008). 22 Overall, 25% of the errors reflected a complete lack of knowledge of the names or of the meanings of the pictures. Most errors, however, were likely to be due to a not yet fully developed knowledge of the meaning of words labelling the pictures, or to an incomplete conceptual representation, and this pattern was more marked for action concepts.