CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter presents the theoretical background of this research that includes
many theories. It is divided into three main partstheoretical studies, relevant
research and framework. Theoretical studies are divided into five sections. The
first section is comprehension, production and acquisition. The second section is
first language acquisition that is divided into two partsfirst language acquisition
and second language acquisition and steps of first language acquisition that
include

phonology

development,

vocabulary

development,

morphology

development, syntactic development and semantic development. The third section

is word meaning. Next section is over-extension, under-extension and meaning
with no overlap. The last section of theoretical studies is chronology of child
language. This chapter explains briefly all the theories that relates to the research.
A. Theoretical Studies
1. Comprehension, Production and Acquisition
Someone cannot communicate if she does not understand what other
people say and she does not produce any word. Besides, she cannot
understand and produce language if she does not learn it. These cases
comprehension, production and acquisition are very related and cannot be
seperated.
According to Clark, Herbert H. and Eve V. Clark (1977:43),
Comprehension has two common senses. In its narrow sense it denotes
the mental processes by which listeners take in the sounds uttered by a
speaker and use them to construct an interpretation of what they think
the speaker intended to convey. More simply, it is the building of
meanings from sounds.
6

It means that comprehension is one of the someones processes in

paraphrasing and interpreting what she hears from other people and
understands what the purpose of the people say. According to Prideaux,
Gary D. (1984:50), It is only charitable to assume that before a speaker
utters a sentence, he has something to say. That is, he presumably has at
least the rough idea of a message which he wishes to convey.
Production is a process of producing language and has meaning.
Production started with construction an idea or concept of someones
thought which is arranged to be a sentence and released through the speech
organ. According to Levelt as quoted by Scovel, Thomas (1998:27), One
of the most influential psycholinguistics models for speech production,
developed by Levelt, views it as a linear progression of four successive
stages: (1) conceptualization, (2) formulation, (3) articulation, and (4) selfmonitoring.
The first stage is conceptualization. When someone wants to produce
an utterance, she constructs an idea first in her mind what she wants to
convey. This is in line with David McNeill as quoted by Scovel, Thomas
(1998:27) that states, The American psycholinguist David McNeill,
however, has gone on record with an interesting mentalistic account of
how speech is first conceptualized in human mind.
The second stage is formulation. According to Scovel, Thomas
(1998:30), But at the second stage of speech production, formulation, we
move close enough to the eventual output of the process to allow us to be

more precise in our terminology and more convincing in our use of

empirical data. It means that in formulation, someones utterance is more
precise and convincing to formulate the words.
The third stage is articulation. After the words are conception in our
mind, then split and select the words, the words are translated into the
sounds and syllables through someones speech organ. Scovel, Thomas
(1998:41) says,
Like the operation of a computer program during word processing, the
formulation stage of speech involves thousands of split-second
decisions regarding the hierarchical and sequential selection of myriads
of potential segments. But this third stage of articulation is similar to
what happens when all of those bits of information selected by a word
processing program go from your computer to your printer; unless this
vast amount of electrical data is articulated into letters of the alphabet
and successfully printed, no message is received.
The last stage is self-monitoring. In this last stage, someone not only
produce an utterance but also keep her ear open to her utterances. If she
makes a mistake in her utterance, she will correct her mistake. This is in
line with Scovel, Thomas (1998:46) that states,
it seems that at this final stage of self-monitoring we have direct
evidence of what is happening when people compose speech.
Interlocutors not only produce speech and listen to one another when
conversing, they also seem to keep one ear open on what they
themselves are saying, and if they catch something amiss, they are
quick o amend the goof and then continue to converse.
In other words, self-monitoring means someone edits her message or word
and correct her error.
It is different from acquisition, which someones processes in
acquiring and learning the language. Language acquisition learns since
someone was an infant because she is not born talking. Language

acquisition is divided into two kindsfirst language acquisition and

second language acquisition.
The process of comprehension and production has been learnt since
someone was a child like Feldman, Robert S. (2005:267) says, Of course,
even they before produce their first words, children can understand a fair
amount of the language they hear. Language comprehension precedes
language production. Therefore, in the process of acquiring language of
children, comprehension is the first thing they master before they can
produce any word.
2. First Language Acquisition
a. First Language Acquisition and Second Language Acquisition
Language acquisition is divided into two kinds: first language
acquisition and second language acquisition. First language acquisition
is a process of acquiring first language since someone was a child.
Second language acquisition is a process of learning or acquiring new
language. Second language acquisition is acquired after the children
get their first language. It is influenced by first language acquisition as
stated by Ellis, Rod. (1986:19) that, It is a popular belief that second
language acquisition (SLA) is strongly influenced by the learners first
language (L1).
b. Steps of First Language Acquisition
The sounds heard by infants are produced by the people around
them. When the people often speak to the infants, language ability of
the infants will increase. It is not easy for the infants to acquire their
language, although they were born with complete speech organs like
adult, infants do not have the ability to communicate directly.

10

There are some processes of acquiring first language of the

infants. They must pass phonology, vocabulary, morphology, syntactic
and semantic development.
1) Phonology Development
Infants are born with a good listening ability. They can
differentiate between sound produced by people and non-human
sound. This is in line with OGrady, William and Sook Whan Cho
(2011:330) that state,
Children seem to be born with a perceptual system that is
especially designed for listening to speech. Newborns respond
differently to human voices than to other sounds From
around one month of age, children exhibit the ability to
distinguish among certain speech sounds.
The first sound produced by infants is crying. Whatever the
infants want to, they only cry because they cannot utter what they
want with language. After a few months, infants start cooing and
babbling. According to Hasan Shadily as quoted by Marat,
Samsunuwiyati (2009:43), Bayi yang berumur 3 hingga 4 bulan
mulai memproduksi bunyi-bunyi. Mula-mula ia memproduksi
tangisan atau bunyi cooing/berdekut. It means that infant at the
age about three to four months start to produce some sounds. They
begin to produce crying or cooing. According to Marat,
Samsunuwiyati (2009:43), Pada usia antara 5 dan 6 bulan ia
mulai mengoceh. It means that at the age about five to six months,
she starts babbling.
This phonology development, infants have to produce sounds
and syllable. It begins by cooing at the age of three months, and

11

babbling at the age of six months. Infants will master phonetics

segmentation that is begun by producing syllable after babbling
passed.
The first word that produced by infants is mama, dada, or
papa. According to Feldman, Robert S. (2005:267), In English,
these are typically short words that start with consonant sound such
as like b, d, m, p and tthis helps explain why mama and dada are
so often among babies first words.
Afterwards, infants start to learn producing words by imitating
what their parents or the people around them say like Atkinson,
Rita L., et al. (without year:582-583) say, Salah satu
kemungkinan anak mempelajari bahasa adalah dengan meniru
orang dewasa. Kemungkinan kedua anak mendapatkan
kemampuan berbahasa adalah melalui pengkondisian. It means
that one of the possibilities is children learn the language by
imitating the adult. Second possibility of children in acquiring
their language ability is through conditioning.
Infants imitate what their parents say in their capacity because
they are just learnt how to produce sounds. Words produced by
children by imitating their parents are usually simplified with four
ways, like OGrady, William and Sook Whan Cho (2011:332-335)
say,
Childrens ability to perceive the phonemic contrasts of their
language develops well in advance of their ability to produce
them. So even children who are unable to produce the difference
between words like mouse and mouth, cart and card, or jug and
duck may nonetheless be able to point to pictures of the correct

12

objects in a comprehension task. What precisely is

responsible for the special character of the sound patterns in
childrens early speech? The key seems to lie in the operation of
a limited number of universal phonetic processes: syllable
deletion, syllable simplification, substitution and assimilation.
It means that children face the difficulties in producing words
because the limitation of their speech organ in producing words.
They simplify with four wayssyllable deletion, syllable
simplification, substitution and assimilation.
Although children learn how to utter the words by imitating,
they do not utter it correctly, because of the limitation of their
speech organs. Therefore, children simplify the words with those
four ways.
2) Vocabulary Development
Vocabulary development of children develops in accordance
with their age. According to Menyuk, et al. as quoted by Menyuk,
Paula and Maria Estela Brisk (2005:4),
Studies of infants learning one language have found that
typically at 10 months the average number of words recognized
is about 10 words, and at 13 to 14 months is about 50 words.
Infants usually produce about 10 words at 14 months and 50
words at 18 months.
It means that vocabulary development possessed by every
child will develop in accordance with their age. Children produce
ten words at the age of ten months and 50 words at the age of 13 to
14 months, but children usually produce ten words at the age of 14
months and 50 words at the age of 18 months. The last statement is
strengthened by OGrady, William and Sook Whan Cho (2011:335)

13

that argue, By age eighteen months or so, the average child has a
vocabulary of fifty words or more. It is popular belief that infants
produce 50 words at the age of 18 months.
Vocabulary possessed by children are limited with the things
around them. When children at the age of two years old, their
vocabulary development increase rapidly. It is not balance with
their ability in grouping the words in their brain. It causes a
problem in vocabulary development.
The problems faced by children are over-extension and underextension of word meaning development like OGrady, William
and Sook Whan Cho (2011:337) state, The two most typical
semantic errors involve overextension and underextension. These
two problems appear in meaning of children.
3) Morphology Development
After children can produce two words, a new problem arises in
this development. The problem is overgeneralization that children
cannot distinguish regular-irregular verb in past form, possessive
s, and singular-plural. According to OGrady, William and Sook
Whan Cho (2011:341),
Because many common words have irregular inflection in
English, children sometimes begin by simply memorizing
inflected words on a case-by-case basis without regard for
general patterns or rules. Errors that result from the overly
broad application of a rule are called overgeneralizations.
Whereas Marat, Samsunuwiyati (2009:53) says, Dalam bahasa
Indonesia, belum diketahui bagaimana perkembangan morfologi

14

pada bahasa anak karena belum ada penelitian di bidang

tersebut. It means that in Indonesian, has not been known yet how
the morphology development in children language because there
has not been investigated yet in this field.
English has many irregular verbs, possessive s and singular
form which change into plural form. It is different with Indonesian
which does not have those forms.

4) Syntactic Development
After children can produce word, they learn to make a simple
sentence to utter what they purpose, but they cannot learn it
directly. Children think one word that they produce as a complete
sentence. According to Dardjowidjojo, Soejono (2005:246),
Dalam bidang sintaksis, anak memulai berbahasa dengan
mengucapkan satu kata atau bagian kata. Kata ini, bagi anak,
sebenarnya adalah kalimat penuh, tetapi karena dia belum
dapat mengatakan lebih dari satu kata, dia hanya mengambil
satu kata dari seluruh kalimat itu.
It means that in syntactic development, child starts to speak by
saying one word or part of word. This word is a complete sentence
for child, because she cannot say more than one word, she only
takes one word from one sentence.
In this stage, children can produce one and two words. In their
mind, it is a complete sentence. Besides, children can produce the
simple interrogative, negative and passive sentences which consist

15

of two words and it still develops until produce a simple complete

sentence.
5) Semantic Development
Children understand about the meaning of a word by
mastering semantic features of word one by one until all of those
semantic features are mastered and understood by them like adult.
Clark

as

quoted by Chaer, Abdul (2009:196-197) says,

Perkembangan pemerolehan semantik dibagi ke dalam empat

tahap yaitu tahap penyempitan makna kata, tahap generalisasi
berlebihan, tahap medan semantik dan tahap generalisasi. It
means that semantic development is divided into four steps
under-extension, over-extension, semantic field and generalization.
In semantic development, there is a process of language
development

in

children.

Under-extension

means

children

underextend a word with the adult meaning. Over-extension means

that children overextend a word with the adult meaning. In
semantic field steps, children start to group the name of the things
into the appropriate group in their brain. Last, generalization step
means that children know the meaning of one thing surely.
The process of producing language is controlled by brain.
When someone wants to communicate, she formulates first in her
brain. Then, she produces it through speech organ. The mediation
between thought and motor command takes place in it. According

16

to Marta Kutas and Bernadette M. Schmitt in Banich, Marie T and

Molly Mack (2003:171),
Language mediates between thoughts and motor commands in a
speaker, and between acoustic or visuospatial signals and
thoughts in a listener. This mediation takes place in the brain.
The brain is the machine that takes sounds, letter strings, or
hand shapes as input and somehow yields the phenomenological
sense of understanding. The brain is also the machine that
controls the mouth or the hand in sign language so as to generate
a linguistic utterance.
One of the functions of language is to communicate. People
communicate using symbol/word and when they want to produce
the word, there is a process in their thought. The development of
human intelligence is influenced by the development of language.
It is in line with Ellis, John M. (1993:58) that says, The
development of language is the major aspect of the development of
modern human intelligence. The development of childrens
language depends on their age.
Under-extension and over-extension happen because children
are in learning process of acquiring their language. In this step,
children must know the characteristic of many objects. The process
of children in identification of the characteristics of object starts in
their brain. After children know the characteristics of the objects by
seeing it, they utter what in their mind. The symbol, thought and
referent shows in figure of triangle of signification. It is shown in
figure 2.1.
Figure 2.1
The Triangle of Signification According to Ogden and
Richards as Quoted by Lyons, John (1984:96)

17

A ------------------------ C
A is called sign or symbol. B is called concept or thought. C is
called significatum or referent. This is in line with Lyons, John
(1977:96) that argues,
Various terms are employed in the literature: for the present at
least, we will employ sign* for A, concept* for B, and
significatum* for C. This is in accordance with at least one
traditional analysis of signification the one that is expressed,
for example, in the scholastic maxim: vox significant [rem]
mediantibus conceptibus (cf. Ullman, 1957:71). This may be
translated as the word signifies [the thing] by means of
mediating concepts.
The relationship among this triangle of signification is the
language that produced by human speech organ is started
processing in her mind. Then, she produces it to point the things,
events or situations by using language/symbol. This process starts
from someone since she was baby, but before she produces one
word utterance, the symbol/language is not clear enough.
It is known that word or sentence produced by children started
in their brain. When the children overextend cat to dog, for
example, it can be identified what in childrens mind by knowing
the lexical relation and componential analysis of cat and dog.
Lexical relation shows the relation between cat and dog, whereas

18

componential analysis shows the similatities and differences of cat

and dog. By analysing the lexical relation and componential
analysis of the objects, it can be known what in childrens mind
and the reason why they underextend or overextend a thing to other
object(s). It is in line with Christine Chiarello in Banich, Marie T
and Molly Mack (2003:236) that argue,
In such studies a target word such as CAT, to which a subject
must respond, is preceded by a prime word, which may be
related (DOG) or unrelated (JAR) to it in meaning. Semantic
priming is indicated by faster responding following a related,
than following an unrelated, prime word, and this indicates that
the meaning of the prime word has been accessed (Neely, 1991).
When the prime and target words have similar meanings,
recognition of the prime word will activate semantic features
shared with the target (e.g., four-legged, furry, domesticated),
thereby facilitating the subsequent comprehension of related
words
a) Lexical Relations
Lexical relations show the relationship between word and
other word or how a word relates to other word. According to
Riemer, Nick (2010:136), As well as knowing a words
definitional meaning, a competent speaker knows how it relates
to other words of the language There are five most
important types of semantic relation: antonymy, meronymy,
hyponymy, taxonomy and synonymy.
When there are two opposite words, it is called antonymy.
According to Griffiths, Patrick (2006:30), The term antonymy

19

is sometimes employed to mean any kind of oppositeness. The

example of antonymy is hot-cold or good-bad.
The second type is meronymy. In line with this, Riemer,
Nick (2010:140) states,
Meronymy (Greek meros: part) is the relation of part to
whole: hand is a meronym of arm, seed is a meronym of
fruit, blade is a meronym of knife (conversely, arm is the
holonym of hand, fruit is the holonym of seed, etc.)
It means that if a word is a part of other word, it is called
meronymy. For example, hand is a meronym of arm.
The third type is hyponymy. According to Riemer, Nick
(2010:142), Hyponymy (Greek hypo- under) is the lexical
relation described in English by the phrase kind/type/sort of. It
means that hyponymy tells a kind or type of a word. For
example, Persian cat is a hyponym of cat since a Persian cat is
a kind of cat.
The forth type is taxonomy. Taxonomy explains level in
plants and animals, for example, level 0 is plant and level 1 is
tree.
The last type is synonymy. Synonymy is the opposite of
antonymy. Palmer, F. R. (1976:59) states, Synonymy is used
to mean sameness of meaning. For example, mother, mom
and mum are synonyms of each other.
b) Componential Analysis

20

Componential analysis means the description of the

meaning of words based on the conceptual and the relation of
the words. It is in line with Geeraerts, Dirk (2010:70),
Componential analysis provides a descriptive model for
semantic content, based on the assumption that meanings can
be described on the basis of a restricted set of conceptual
building blocksthe semantic components or features.
The following table shows the componential analysis for a
series of hyponyms piece of furniture chair armchair.
Table 2.1
Componential Analysis of English Furniture Terms
According to Riemer, Nick (2010:155)

chair
armchai
r
stool
sofa
beanbag

With
back

With
legs

For a
single
person
+

+
+

For
sitting

With
arms

Rigid

+
+
+

+
+

3. Word Meaning
It has been stated previously that children understand about the
meaning of a word by mastering the semantic feature. When children find
a new thing, they will watch, think the kind, the opposite of the thing and
the words related to that thing. According to Lust, Barbara (2006:233),
One early theory, Semantic Feature Theory, (Clark1973b; Locke
1968/1690), explored the possibility that the childs acquisition of word

21

meaning could be explained in terms of gradual addition of a universal set

of discrete criterial perceptually based features.
This process has stages and of course, children find the problems. The
problems faced by children in this step are over-extension and underextension, but only a little who do not face both of them. Maybe, children
face all of the problems or they only face one of the problems.
4. Over-extension, Under-extension and Meaning with no Overlap
Vocabulary possessed by children definited with their age. At the
early age, their vocabulary limited with the things around them, like
parents, foods, toys, house holds that they use and animals. According to
Atkinson, Rita L., et al. (without year:580),
Anak satu tahun telah memiliki konsep tentang banyak hal, dan jika
mereka mulai berbicara, mereka memetakan konsep tersebut ke dalam
kata-kata yang digunakan oleh orang dewasa. Pembendaharaan kata
awal kira-kira sama pada semua anak. Anak satu sampai dua tahun
berbicara terutama tentang orang (papa, mama, baby), hewan (anjing,
kucing, bebek), kendaraan (mobil, truk, kapal), mainan (bola, kotak,
buku), makanan (jus, susu, kue), bagian tubuh (mata, hidung, mulut),
dan benda-benda rumah (topi, sendok). Walaupun kata-kata tersebut
menamakan sebagian konsep anak kecil, tidak diragukan lagi mereka
menamakan semuanya. Dengan demikian, anak kecil seringkali
memiliki kesenjangan antara konsep yang ingin mereka komunikasikan
dan kata yang mereka miliki. Untuk menjembatani kesenjangan ini,
anak berusia satu sampai dua setengah tahun memperluas/overextend
kata-kata mereka ke konsep tetangga.
It means that children at the age of one year have many concepts, and
when they start to speak, they are mapping that concept into words that is
used by adult. The estimation of early vocabulary possessed by children is
same. Children at the age of one to two years speak especially about
people (papa, mama, baby), animals (dog, cat, duck), vehicle (car, truck,
ship), toys (ball, box, book), foods (juice, milk, cake), parts of body (eyes,

22

nose, mouth), and house holds (hat, spoon). Although those words named
using part of children concept, it is no doubt that children give name to
those things. Thus, children are usually asymmetry between concept that
they want to communicate and word that they possess. To solve this
asymmetry, children one to two and half years old overextend their words
to neighbour concept.
Children overextend or underextend a thing to other objects because
words possessed by children have the similar characteristics. The
following section explains over-extension, under-extension and meaning
with no overlap happened to children.
a. Over-extension
Vocabulary development of the children at the age of 1;6 years old
rises rapidly. The vocabularies enter to the childrens brain without
grouping in their comprehension so the new vocabularies overextend
to other objects. According to Meadows, Sara (2001:121),
The limits of early vocabulary items have been seen as of interest as
possibly revealing how young children associate label and referent.
Quite commonly children use an early word to refer to many more
objects than an adult would, for example doggy is applied not just
to dogs but to cats and pieces of fur, in what is called overextension.
It means that in childrens brain, there is associated between
childrens label/symbol and referent. Another example is when
children see a cat. In their brain, cat is a thing which has four legs, a
tail and fur. When children see a dog, tiger or lion, they will say cat to
them because those animals have the same shape and characteristics.

23

According to Rescorla as quoted by Clark, Eve V. (2009:83),

Overextensions appear most commonly in childrens speech from
about age 1;6 to 2;6 and may affect as many as 40% of childrens early
words until they reach a production vocabulary of around one
hundred. It means that over-extension occurs about one year and
affects about 40% new vocabularies of the children.
Over-extension occurs to the things based on shape, movement,
sound, taste, size and texture.
Table 2.2
Early Word Uses: Overextensions Based on Shape According to
Clark, Eve V. (2009:83)

Word

Mooi

Nenin
Buti
ticktock
gumene
baw
kottiebaiz
tee
kutija

First
Referent

Domain of (Over)extensions

> cakes > round marks on windows >

writing on windows and in books >
moon (Eng.), round shapes in books > tooling on
leather book covers > round postmarks
> letter O
> button on garment > point of bare
breast (Fr.),
elbow > eye in portrait > face in portrait
> face in photo
> ball > radish > stone spheres on park
ball (Serb.),
gates
> clock > all clocks and watches > gas
watch (Eng.), meter > fire hose on spool > bath scale
with round dial
coat button
> collar stud > door handle > light
(Serb.),
switch > anything small and round
> apples > grapes > eggs > squash >
ball (Eng.),
bell clapper > anything round
bars of crib
> large toy abacus > toast rack > picture
(Eng.),
of building with columned faade
> cane > umbrella > ruler > [oldstick (Eng.), fashioned] razor > board of wood > all
sticklike objects
cardboard
> matchbox > drawer > bedside table

24

box
(Serb.),
Mum

horse (Eng.),

> cow > calf > pig > moose > all fourlegged animals

Note: The symbol > indicates the next (over)extension for the word in
question.
The table shows over-extension based on shape. The objects have
the same characteristics and group of name although it comes from
different country. For instance, children say mooi for moon and it
overextends to other things like cake, button and letter O because those
things have the same shape with moonround.
In this over-extension based on shape, children overextend things
based on semantic relation typed meronymy like in clock-watch, and
taxonomy like in apple-grape and horse-cow.
Tabel 2.3
Overextensions Based on Movement, Size, Sound and Texture
According to Clark, Eve V. (2009:84)
Word
sch

ass

First Referent
sound of train
(Ger.),
toy goat on
wheels, with
rough hide
(Ger.),

Domain of (Over)extensions
> all moving machines
> sister > wagon (things that move),
> all things that move > all things
with rough surface
> specks of dirt > dust > all small
insects childs own toes > crumbs of
bread > toad
> flies > ants > all small insects >
heads of timothy grass

fly

fly (Eng.),

em

worm (Eng.),

fafer

chemin de fer,
sound
of train (Fr.),

> steaming coffee pot > anything

that hissed or made a noise

wau-wau

dog (Serb.),

> all animals > toy dog > soft house

slippers > picture of old man in furs

25

The second table indicates over-extension based on movement,

size, sound and texture. They also have the same characteristics and
function so the children overextend the things to the other things in the
group. In this over-extension based on movement, size, sound and
texture, children overextend things based on semantic relation typed
taxonomy like in worm-flies.
Over-extension occurs in two ways: pure over-extension and
mixed over-extension. According to Clark, Herbert H. and Eve V.
Clark (1977:490-491),
Over-extensions can overlap with the adult meaning in two ways.
First, a pure over-extension may pick out only one or two properties
as criterial for the use of a word. A second kind of over-extension
is the mixed over-extension. It is typically based on different
characteristics shared by the original referent in different situation.
Besides, over-extension occurs in three levelscomprehension,
production and both of them. According to Clark, Herbert H. and Eve
V. Clark (1977:496),
Imagine a child who over-extends doggie to both cats and dogs. If
the conceptual components he picks out are the only meaning he
has for doggie, then he should show no preference for dogs over
cats when shown pictures of both and asked show me doggie.
Doggie in this case is over-extend both in production and
comprehension. The child who over-extends doggie to cats on
the one hand and to slippers on the other, should show a preference
for dogs over cats when shown pictures of both and asked show me
doggie. In this case, doggie would be over-extend in production but
not in comprehension. They then tested the childrens
comprehension of those words by showing them pairs of pictures
and saying, show me doggie where doggie was the word that had
been over-extend. The pictures consisted of appropriate referents
(dogs), paired with inappropriate ones (e.g., horses or cows), to
which the word had been over-extended.

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It means that in comprehension and production level, children

point out dog and cat without selected which one is dog or which one
is cat when they showed pictures of dog and cat. In comprehension
level, children have no preferences about what they are thinking.
Besides, in production level, children have no preferences about what
they will say.
Chidren usually overextend in production than in comprehension.
This is in line with Anne Fernald and Virgina A. Marchman in Traxler,
Matthew J. and Morton Ann Gernsbacher (2006:1045) that argue,
Interestingly, childrens over- and under-extensions are considerably
more frequent in production than comprehension (e.g., Clark,
2003a), and an experimentalstudy using a looking-preference
procedure has shown little concordance between comprehension
and childrens over- and under-extensions in production (Naigles &
Gelman, 1995).
b. Under-extension
Under-extension is the opposite of over-extension. This is in line
with Clark, Eve V. (2009:404) that argues, Under-extension means the
use of a word by children for a category smaller than the adult one, as
when a child restricts doggie to one specific dog.
Under-extension occurs to the children at the age of 1;0 to 1;6
years old. The example of under-extension is when children see a car
runs on the road and see from the window of their bedroom. In
children thought, a car is a thing that has four wheels, runs on the road
and sees from the window of their bedroom. If there is a car parked at
the garage or in front of their house, although it has the same

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characteristics, size, even color, children will not consider that it is a

car.
In this under-extension, children underextend things based on
semantic relation typed hyponymy because hyponymy is described the
kind or type, such as a cat, children underextend only to specific or
type of a cat like Persian cat.
c. Meaning with No Overlap
There is another problem in childrens vocabulary development
called meaning with no overlap. According to Clark, Herbert H. and
Eve V. Clark (1977:492), What happens to instances of no overlap
between adult and child meanings? Because they provide no basis for
communication, children presumably abandon such words quite
quickly. Children think the words that they use have no basis for
communication so the words are left by children.
5. Chronology of Child Language
There are some chronologies in the childrens language development.
Children usually pass these steps. Some of them maybe do not pass one or
some steps because language development of every child is different. The
chronology of the children starts when they are three months.
Table 2.4
Chronology of Child Language According to Mackey, William Francis
(1965:106)

3 months

Understanding
Recognizes human voice.
No memory. Bound to
present. Little
coordination between
grasping and mouthing.

Utterance
Social smile. Spontaneous,
disorganized sounds.
Babbling.

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Understanding
Recognizes friendly and
6 months
unfriendly tones.
Reacts to gesture.
9 months Preference for certain
words.
Responds to simple
12 months commands.
Points to simple things on
command. Follows simple
direction.
18 months

2 years

Understand commands
referring to present
situation. May understand
several hundred words.

Understand question
referring to past.
3 years

4 years

5 years

6-8 years

Great range of
understanding. Still
confuses periods of time.
Understand past events of
childhood. May
understand over two
thousands words.
Complete understanding
of everyday utterances.
Begins reading, thus
increasing passive
vocabulary.

Utterance
Many vowel sounds.
Lallation.
All varieties of sound and
sound combinations.
Verbal play. Jargon stage.
First few words as
conditioned responses.
About a dozen words or more.
Verbal behavior accompanied
by gesture. Beginning of
language as communication.
Jargon begins to disappear.
Beginning of two-word
phrases. Vocabulary begins
sharp rise.
Jargon dropped. Language as
communication. Great
individual variation in
pronunciation. Vocabulary in
the hundreds. Simple phrases.
Pronouns. Verbalizes wants.
Large increase in vocabulary.
Gets structure right. Plurals,
tenses, parts of speech,
sentence patterns. Narrates
past experience. Language as
a substitute for action.
Speech skills perfected. No
baby talk. Rambling torrent of
speech. Age of loquacity.
Briefer and more critical
responses. Begins counting
and printing. More complex
sentences. Large vocabulary.
Complete speech habits of the
language. Only need is
reinforcing them through
practice. Holds on to patterns
learned.

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The chronology table above shows that children pass some steps in
acquiring their language. The utterance produced by them starts when their
age at about three months. They can produce a word at the age about one
year and at the age about eight years they can communicate perfectly.
B. Relevant Research
This research is relevant with research written by James A. Hampton
(1996) entitled, Conjunction of Visually Based Categories: Overextension
and Compensation.
In his research, Hampton, James A. (1996:395) concludes, The
phenomena of overextension and category dominance may also be found with
categories of visual stimuli classified along familiar conceptual dimensions.
Hampton finds that over-extension found with categories of visual stimuli. He
observes whether over-extension occurs to the things based on the color, letter,
and shape.
C. Framework
First language acquisition is a process acquiring a language by children
since they were infants. First language acquisition is the first language got and
learnt from their mother. It is not easy to acquire the first language acquisition.
There are several steps in acquiring first language acquisition those are
phonology, vocabulary, morphology, syntactic and semantic developments.
Word meaning is a process of vocabulary development occurred in
children. They start to understand about the meaning of one object after they
know the object/thing. In this stage, they face problems in determining word
meaning because the capacity of their comprehension still develops. The

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problems are under-extension happened to them at the age of 1;0 to 1;6 years
old and over-extension happened to them at the age of 1;6 to 2;6 years old.
Over-extension is a problem in acquiring language when children start to
understand the meaning and the function of an object or a thing. Overextension means they overextend the meaning of thing with the adults
referent. It happens to them at the age of 1;6 to 2;6 years old. It occurs because
the vocabularies of the children at the age of 1;6 to 2;6 years old increase
rapidly without followed by the ability of grouping the words into their brain.
They recognize a thing based on the characteristics of that thing and they use
the way to identify other thing that has resembled characteristic.