By Stephen Shimanek . Last update : 18 June 2007.
" A 2 and a half year old child notices a minuscule spot of red ink on my writing table, points to it saying "booboo": this is clearly the most suitable term she could employ to describe the visual representation that she is not yet able to connect to its true cause. "
Henry, Victor (1896), Les antinomies linguistiques, Paris: Didier érudition, p. 53.
Overextention is created from perceptual similitude, as though children put together conceptual prototypes from the first object or phenomenon with which a word is connected. As a result the word is used to refer to an object sharing one or more saliant traits with the prototype.
(For a discussion of Victor Henry’s writings, see Klippi, Carita (2005). La vie du langage. La linguistique dynamique en France de 1864 à 1916. Doctoral thesis defended the 30 September, 2005, directed by Sylvain Auroux and Esa Itkonen.)