“A MOSAIC IS NOT A PLACE WHERE YOU GO TO SEE PICTURES” ON THE NATURE OF DEFINITIONS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEFINITIONAL SKILLS

This contribution describes a classification system of definitions focused on their formal aspects, starting from the assumption that only the progressive production of syntactically appropriate, i.e. complete and correct, answers accounts for definitional development. First the main functions and requirements of definitions, according to linguistics, philosophy of language and developmental psychology, are described. On their basis, a Definitional Scale was devised formed of 5 definitional levels, each adding a new morpho-syntactic property: from simple answers of just one word to the canonical Aristotelian format, the only one allowing an analytical expression of semantic contents. In the first study, the definitional performances are presented of 100 participants (20 for each of five groups, from 5years of age to 20) on a definition task using the Vocabulary subtest of the Italian version of the Stanford-Binet Scale. Results showed the increasing formal correctness and completeness of the linguistic structures used to define words. The same age-related trends were found for Nouns, Verbs ad Adjectives, confirming the greater complexity of Verbs and Adjectives than Nouns, and of abstract nouns than the concrete ones. The second study presents the relationships between the scores on the Definitional Scale and the scores obtained on the Stanford-Binet Scales; it was demonstrated that mainly Mental Age but also Chronological Age predict definitional competence.