Does the children ,s prior knowledge of the lexical items influence the provision offunctional
properties ?
No significant differences were found by the children’s prior knowledge of the lexical items.
Is the provision of functional properties influenced by the semantic domain of the lexical
items?
The children provided significantly more “functional” properties for the words describing
animals than for the words describing artifacts across testing (Wilcoxon, Pl: Z=2,8, p<.005;
P2: Z=4.7, p<0000; P3: Z=5.4, p<.0000). Separate analysis for each group revealed the same
pattern. However, significant differences were found for the Lexical contrast group during
post test 3 (Wilcoxon: Z=2.02, p<.05) and the Definition group during post test 2 (Wilcoxon:
Z=4.1, p<.0000) and post test 3 (Wilcoxon: Z=4.3, p<.0000).
Analysis of the Contextual properties
Is there a differential impact of the type of exposure to new lexical items that the children
receive on the provision of contextual properties?
No significant differences were found for post test 1 and post test 2, while significant
differences were found for post test 3 (Kjuskall-Wallis I-Way- Anova: X2 = 9.9, df = 4,
p<.05). Particularly, the Lexical contrast group provided significantly more “contextual”
properties than the Phonological control group (WilcoxomZ=2.2, p<.05) Also, the Definition
group provided more “contextual” properties than the Lexical contrast group (Wilcoxon:
Z=2.2, p<.05).
Does children ,s provision of contextual properties increase with increased exposure to the
lexical items ?
No significant differences were found over time.
Does the children ,s prior knowledge of the lexical items influence the provision of contextual
properties?
No significant differences were found by the nature of the children’s prior knowledge of the
lexical items.