NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION



Is the provision of semantic properties influenced by the semantic domain of the lexical
items?

The children provided more “semantic” properties for the words describing artifacts than for
the words describing animals across testing, however the differences were not significant.
The same pattern was found for each group.

Analysis of the Functional properties

Is there a differential impact of the type of exposure to new lexical items that the children
receive on the provision of functional properties?

Three One Way Anovas were carried out. Each time group was the independent variable and
the number of “functional” properties provided in post test 1,2 and 3 the dependent variable.
No significant differences were found for post test 1, while, significant differences were
found for post test 2 (Kruskall-Wallis I-Way- Anova: X2 = 34.5, df=2, p<.0005) and post test
3 (Kruskall-Wallis I-Way- Anova: X2 = 47.1, df=4, p<.0000).

Particularly, during post test 2 the Definition group provided significantly more “functional”
properties than the Ostensive definition (Wilcoxon: Z=4.85, p<.0000) and Lexical contrast
group (Wilcoxon: Z=5.05, p<.0000). During post test 3 the Definition group provided
significantly more “functional” properties than the Control (Wilcoxon: Z = 5.8, p<.0005) the
Phonological control (Wilcoxon: Z =5.5, p<.0005), the Ostensive definition (Wilcoxon: Z=
4.08, p<.0005) and the Lexical contrast group (Wilcoxon: Z = 4.8, p<.0005). No significant
differences were found between the Control and the Phonological control group across
testing.

Does children ,s provision of functional properties increase with increased exposure to the
lexical items?

All the children provided significantly fewer “functional” properties during post test 1 than
post test 2 (Wilcoxon: Z=3.2, p<.0005) and post test 3 (Wilcoxon: Z=3.8, p<.0005). Separate
analysis per group revealed the same pattern. Significant differences were found for the
Definition group which provided significantly more “functional” properties during post test
2 than post test 1 (WilcoxomZ=4.2, p<.0000).

218



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