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Identifies whether children produced novel words, what word types emerged, why they were created, and whether they became part of the siblings’ lasting vocabularies. Categorizes novel words by function (developmental substitution, word play, redundant duplication, or word gap) and analyzes the nonce, compound, and pseudoword forms, noting repetition patterns and links to imaginative play needs.",{"@graph":69,"@context":126},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/word-play-the-creation-and-function-of-novel-words-in-the-pretend-play-of-two-siblings/591496/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/word-play-the-creation-and-function-of-novel-words-in-the-pretend-play-of-two-siblings/591496.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"supergirl","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-04","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118,122],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Did the siblings produce novel words during pretend play?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Yes. The study reports that the children spontaneously produced a varied repertoire of novel words during the play sessions over the fourteen-month period.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What functions were used to categorize the novel words?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The authors categorized novel words as developmental substitution, word play, redundant duplication, or word gap, depending on how the words functioned in the siblings’ conversations.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What kinds of novel words were most common?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Most novel words were nonce formations (isolated occurrences) and were mainly compound words and pseudowords (fictitious words).",{"name":123,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":124},"How did repetition affect the novel words during play?",{"text":125,"@type":113},"When the boys repeated novel words, they usually did so immediately—within the same play session—suggesting word use that was tightly tied to moment-by-moment pretend-play needs.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":128,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":130,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":132,"site_id":62},591496,1792164927,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":135},{"doc_id":132,"user_id":136,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":137,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":138,"file_id":139,"file_url":140,"file_type":141,"file_size":142,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":143,"language":144,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":145,"faqs":146,"seo_title":147,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":148,"read_time":149,"preview_page_count":4},962088121634,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc","Word Play  \nThe Creation and Function of Novel Words in the Pretend Play of Two Siblings  \n•  \nEvangeline E. Nwokah and Kelly N. Graves  \nThis article examines the creation of novel words by two English-speaking male siblings, ages five-and six-years-old, during a fourteen-month period of weekly play sessions. The questions the article addresses are: Did the boys produce novel words? What types of words? Why were these words created? And did they become a permanent part of the siblings’ vocabularies? The authors categorized all novel words as either developmental substitution, word play, redundant duplication, or word gap, depending on how the words functioned in the boys’ conversations. In this dyad, novel words functioned primarily as word play and filling a word gap (thereby providing a precise way to convey meaning) . The novel words were nearly all nonce formations (isolated occurrences) and were composed mainly of compound words (two-or three-word combinations) and pseudowords (fictitious words). When the boys repeated novel words, they usually did so immediately, i.e. within the same play session. The study suggests that these children spontaneously produced a varied repertoire of novel words to meet and expand the needs of their imaginative or pretend play. The words were created in the moment and arose from the novel concepts and themes of pretend play. Research for this article was funded in part by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  \nWhen children engage in pretend play, they create new ideas and imaginative scenarios, they reenact experiences from their own perspectives, and they play roles using their perceptions of people and other characters they know and invent. We define pretend play as a multidimensional type of play that commonly combines communication and intimacy, that uses toys or props, and that involves more than one player. Pretend play is nonliteral, and it transforms actions, objects, persons, places, and, indeed, all other aspects of the children’s immediate situations.1  \nLanguage is an important part of pretend play, used to express multiple meanings for characters, settings, and feelings. Such use of language provides an  \n© 2009 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois  \nideal context to examine the way children produce novel words because the new and imaginative situations they create in pretend play increase the demand for new words to express those situations. Some linguists believe that novel words, also called lexical innovations, used by a child occur primarily to fill a gap in his vocabulary because he temporarily forgets a word, because he does not know the appropriate word, or because thereis no word in the adult standard language that matches his intended meaning. Adults create words for similar reasons, though adults also do it just for fun.2 Adults and children sometimes use novel words instead of more conventional language because these more quickly convey the same meaning. As children grow during the preschool years, their need to be more verbally specific increases. This specificity calls for the creation of larger subcategories of related words (e.g.“space-guy,” “space-hat,” and “space-boots”) and increases the likelihood that they will invent more words.3  \nChildren create novel words in everyday routines including play routines. Such words often are compound words, created by combining two words to mean something different from the individual words together. Younger children may combine words in a simple way by using two nouns (as in “sun-face”) and, at later ages, in a more complex way by combining another kind of word such as a verb with a word ending, or suffix, and a noun (as in “catching-ball”) . Numerous studies have documented this phenomenon in young children in a variety of languages, but they relied on data from parent-to-child interactions. We know less, therefore, about the spontaneous production of novel words in conversations between ch","cbCaitjMKLe63yu4","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaitjMKLe63yu4","pdf",205341,22,"English","# Word Play\n## Novel word creation during pretend play\n## Functions of novel words in siblings’ conversations\n## Word types: compounds and pseudowords\n## Repetition and permanence in vocabulary\n## Background on pretend play and language demand","[{\"question\":\"Did the siblings produce novel words during pretend play?\",\"answer\":\"Yes. The study reports that the children spontaneously produced a varied repertoire of novel words during the play sessions over the fourteen-month period.\"},{\"question\":\"What functions were used to categorize the novel words?\",\"answer\":\"The authors categorized novel words as developmental substitution, word play, redundant duplication, or word gap, depending on how the words functioned in the siblings’ conversations.\"},{\"question\":\"What kinds of novel words were most common?\",\"answer\":\"Most novel words were nonce formations (isolated occurrences) and were mainly compound words and pseudowords (fictitious words).\"},{\"question\":\"How did repetition affect the novel words during play?\",\"answer\":\"When the boys repeated novel words, they usually did so immediately—within the same play session—suggesting word use that was tightly tied to moment-by-moment pretend-play needs.\"}]","Word Play - The Creation and Function of Novel Words in the Pretend Play of Two Siblings | PDF",1792072605,55]