NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: THE IMPORTANCE OF LEXICAL ACQUISITION...............1

1.1 Introduction .................................................1

1.2 The problem...................................................2

1.3 The structure of the thesis ........................................3

Chapter 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR THE ACQUISITION OF THE

WORD’S MEANING .........................................6

2.1 Prologue......................................................6

2.2 What is involved in the acquisition of word meaning...................6

2.2.1 Recognition of the word as a unit ..........................7

2.2.2 Identificationofwhatisinaword⁵Smeaning.................8

2.2.3 Representationofaword⁵Smeaninginthementallexicon......12

2.2.3.1 Category structure..............................13

2.2.3.1.1. The Classical View Theory .....................13

2.2.3.1.2 Theprobabilisticviewtheories..................13

2.2.3.2 The formation of concepts........................15

2.2.3.2.1. The Semantic Feature Hypothesis ...............15

2.2.3.2.2 Functional Core Theory........................17

2.3 Different capacities underlie the word learning process .... 18

2.3.1 Linguistic capacities....................................19

2.3.1.1 Syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis.................20

2.3.1.2 Semantic bootstrapping hypothesis.................21

2.3.1.3 Criticism of the linguistic capacities explanation......22

2.3.2 Conceptual capacities...................................22

2.3.2.1 Constraints for word meaning acquisition ...........23

2.3.2.1.1 Whole object constraint ..................23

2.3.2.1.2 Taxonomic constraint....................24

2.3.2.3.1 Mutual exclusivity constraint..............25

2.3.2.1.4 The principle of contrast..................27

2.3.2.1.5 Contrast and Conventionality..............28