Word Collocations as Language Knowledge Patterns: A Study of Infant Speech

The purpose of the paper is to show the role of word collocations in the process of forming infants’ language knowledge at the beginning stages. We choose keeping a scientific journal as the main method of the study since this allows us to watch causes which could happen long before the observed baby's speech behavior. The study shows that at the beginning stages knowledge of a word may have no connection with its meaning, or concept. Knowledge of a word can be seen as recognition of a particular word in a regularly heard by a child word collocation.