Early Acquisition of Linguistic Designations for Time

Time-related verbalizations of a three year old were analysed in order to gain insight into how children develop linguistic forms to designate time. This study went beyond mere descriptions of the time designators used by the child, and went on to discover what were the limits of his own understanding when adult time terminology was directed at him. Therefore, both the expressive and receptive modalities (output and input) were awarded equal attention. The development of a semantic aspect was inferred by noting gradual changes in both expressive and receptive proficiency that evolved over a period of eleven months. In other words, we have isolated and defined one small area of semantic evolution. The results showed receptive proficiency ahead of expressive in the areas of Time Markers (e.g., - ed morpheme), Time Units (e.g., 'day', 'year') and Time Continuum. For the latter, two time slots at age 2.9 evolved into 10 time slots on the receptive continuum and 9 time slots on the expressive continuum by age 3.8.