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Bootstrapping in linguistics was first introduced by Steven Pinker as a metaphor for the idea that children are innately equipped with mental processes that help initiate language acquisition. Bootstrapping attempts to identify the language learning processes that enable children to learn about the structure of the target language. [2]
For example, under semantic bootstrapping, learning word meanings to understand the difference between physical objects, agents and actions is used to acquire the syntax of a language. [3] However, prosodic bootstrapping also attempts to explain how children acquire the syntax of their language, but through prosodic cues. [ 4 ]
A key criticism of the bootstrapping theory in general is that these mechanisms (whether they be syntactic, semantic, or prosodic) serve mainly as a starting point for learning the language. [5] That is, the bootstrapping mechanisms are only useful up to a certain point in linguistic development for infants, and thus there might be some other ...
Semantic bootstrapping is a linguistic theory of child language acquisition which proposes that children can acquire the syntax of a language by first learning and recognizing semantic elements and building upon, or bootstrapping from, that knowledge. [1]
In both examples, the child could guess the meaning of the verbs by using the videos and associated syntactic structure as cues. [7] Naigles has conducted research on the phenomenon of syntactic bootstrapping in different languages, including French, Mandarin Chinese, [ 11 ] Turkish, [ 12 ] Korean, Spanish, and Japanese. [ 1 ]
One example is speech practice, a strategy where the participant listens and reproduces the word in order to assist in remembering and decrease the likelihood of forgetting . [19] Bilingualism can increase an individual's cognitive abilities and contribute to their success in fast mapping words, even when they are using a nonnative language.
In computer technology, the term bootstrapping refers to language compilers that are able to be coded in the same language. (For example, a C compiler is now written in the C language. Once the basic compiler is written, improvements can be iteratively made, thus "pulling the language up by its bootstraps").
Bootstrapping a compiler has the following advantages: [6] It is a non-trivial test of the language being compiled, and as such is a form of dogfooding. Compiler developers and bug reporters only need to know the language being compiled. Compiler development can be performed in the higher-level language being compiled.