> From: "Jesse, K." <kj395@soton.ac.uk>
> Date: Mon, 27 May 1996 17:08:18 +0100 (BST)
>
> Refering to a particular item in an isolated sence but failing to refer
> to another item in the same category in that sence is an illustration of
> underextension.
Please use a spell-checker.
The above is not a definition of underextension. It would not help
kid-sib if his lunch depended on knowing what underextension was.
> Commonly used by young children, for example when a
> child calls their teddy bear Teddy but refers to other teddy bears as
> 'toy'. Another example is a child calling their special piece of
> material 'blanket' whilst calling other blankets a different name.
The example is fine; but you need a description too, not just examples.
> In contrast the use of a word which extends beyond the boundries
> of its correct usage is referred to as overextension.
That's better.
> It is more common
> in everyday language than underextension, for example hoover, bluetac
> etc. In word learning children use overextension when they
> misunderstand the name of an object by its simple chararistic. For
> example, a child is told that a car is called a car, then the child sees
> a truck which has four wheels alike a car and calls it a car.
For a higher mark, you should relate this to categorisation and language
learning.
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