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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Virginia C. Gathercole
Virginia C. Gathercole*
Affiliation:
Florida International University
*
English Department, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA.
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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.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , October 1987 , pp. 493 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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Footnotes

*

This research was conducted in part while I was on a 1985 NEH Summer Seminar on Issues in the Philosophy of Childhood at the University of Massachusetts. Thanks to Gary Matthews, the director of that seminar, and the other members of the seminar for their helpful criticisms and comments. Special thanks are also due to William Merriman and Melissa Bowerman for extensive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

†

Replies to this article by Martyn Barrett and Eve Clark will be published in volume 15.

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