The contrastive hypothesis for the acquisition of word meaning: a reconsideration of the theory

Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole

53 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Child Language

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Language Development and Disorders Categorization, perception, and language Child and Animal Learning Development

Abstract

ABSTRACT The evidence for the Contrastive Hypothesis (Clark 1980, 1983a, b, 1987, Barrett 1978, 1982) is reviewed. An examination of data from the acquisition of object words, relational words and superordinate terms reveals little support for this hypothesis that young children automatically assume that every two words in their lexicons contrast. Further, theoretical problems with the positions that children assign words to semantic fields as they are acquiring them and that innovations are used to fill lexical gaps make these stances untenable.

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References

1973Cognitive Development and Acquisition of Language 1974Cognition and the development of language. Ed. by John R. Hayes. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1970. Pp. x, 370. $12.00.1978Children's Minds 2014Mechanisms of Language Acquisition 1987The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition 1978Acquiring a Single New Word 2021Children’s Language 1982Linguistic theory and psychological reality . Edited by Morris Halle, Joan Bresnan, and George A. Miller. (MIT Bicentennial studies, 3.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1978. Pp. xvii, 329. $17.50. [Paperback edition, 1981; $7.95.].

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1995Ontological categories and function: Acquisition of new names 1990Acquiring Color Names via Linguistic Contrast: The Influence of Contrasting Terms 1989Incorporating New Words into the Lexicon: Preliminary Evidence for Language Hierarchies in Two-Year-Old Children 1991The mutual exclusivity bias in children's word learning: A reply to Woodward and Markman 2002Young monolingual and bilingual children's responses to violation of the Mutual Exclusivity Principle

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