Semantic bootstrapping in early language development refers to:

Semantic bootstrapping in early language development refers to:

• A. Inferring syntactic structure from prosody
• B. Inferring syntactic structure from semantic information in early sentences
• C. Learning grammar purely from imitation
• D. Using word order to deduce speech acts

Answer: (B)

Semantic bootstrapping is the idea that children use the meaning and roles in early sentences to infer the sentence structure themselves. When they hear words with clear semantic roles—who is doing the action (the agent), what action is happening (the verb), and who is affected (the patient)—they map those meanings onto grammar. This lets them guess which words are likely subjects, verbs, or objects even before they’ve learned explicit rules. For example, hearing a simple sentence about an agent performing an action helps them infer that the agent is the subject and the action is the predicate, guiding their sense of word order and grammatical relations as their vocabulary grows. Other strategies describe different sources of learning, but semantic information specifically supports building an initial grasp of syntax from meaning.

Semantic bootstrapping is the idea that children use the meaning and roles in early sentences to infer the sentence structure themselves. When they hear words with clear semantic roles—who is doing the action (the agent), what action is happening (the verb), and who is affected (the patient)—they map those meanings onto grammar. This lets them guess which words are likely subjects, verbs, or objects even before they’ve learned explicit rules. For example, hearing a simple sentence about an agent performing an action helps them infer that the agent is the subject and the action is the predicate, guiding their sense of word order and grammatical relations as their vocabulary grows. Other strategies describe different sources of learning, but semantic information specifically supports building an initial grasp of syntax from meaning.