The Lexical contrast group followed the linguistic constraint model (see chapter 1) proposed
by Clark. There is also evidence coming from various studies (Carey 1978; Dockrell and
Campbell, 1986) showing that the children use the principle of contrast to infer the meanings
of novel words. In a recent study, Gottfried and Tonks (1996) showed that the use of a
corrective linguistic contrast (e.g., see it’s not purple; it’s mauve) contributes to the
acquisition of novel colour terms.

There has also been evidence that older children can learn novel words from a single
definition (Dickinson, 1984). Additionally, Gottfried and Tonks (1996) demonstrated that
the use of an inclusive statement (e.g., see it’s mauve; it’s a kind of purple) contributes to the
acquisition of novel colour terms in young children. Therefore, Experiment 2 included a
Definition group in order to investigate to what extent a definition context can help younger
children to acquire the meaning of novel words.

Experiment 2 was also designed to investigate word learning over time in order to describe
to what extent lexical representations change. Therefore, children’s word knowledge was
measured three times over a period of three weeks. Furthermore, in order to explore the
effects of pre-existing vocabulary knowledge a different vocabulary test (from the one that
was used in Experiment 1) was employed. The new test was designed to measure children’s
specific vocabulary knowledge (receptive and expressive) of those lexical items which belong
in the same semantic domain as the target words. In that way, it will be demonstrated whether
prior lexical knowledge (of specific lexical items) contributes to learning novel words from
the same semantic domain.

Moreover, as it was mentioned earlier, new variables were also included in Experiment 2.
These were children’s prior knowledge of the lexical items and the semantic domain of the
target words. In order for the child to complete the acquisition process, the different aspects
of the word’s meaning must be represented in the mind. As it was described in chapter 2,
Lyons (1977) proposed a distinction between reference, denotation and sense, as an attempt
to characterize meaning. Furthermore, Dockrell and Campbell (1986) proposed that the
above distinction can provide a framework for the study of the word meaning acquisition.

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