The contributors to this volume examine the multidimensional way in which infants and children acquire the lexicon of their native language.

Modern cognitive science of language concerns itself with (at least) two fundamental questions: how do humans learn language? --the learning problem --and why do the world's languages exhibit some properties and not others? --the typology problem. In this dissertation, I attempt to link these two questions by looking at the lexicon, the set of word-forms and their associated meanings, and ask why do lexicons look the way they are? And can the properties exhibited by the lexicon be (in part) explained by the way children learn their language? One striking observation is that the set of words in a given language is highly ambiguous and confusable. Words may have multiple senses (e.g., homonymy, polysemy) and are represented by an arrangement of a finite set of sounds that potentially increase their confusability (e.g., minimal pairs). Lexicons bearing such properties present a problem for children learning their language who seem to have difficulty learning similar sounding words and resist learning words having multiple meanings. Using lexical models and experimental methods in toddlers and adults, I present quantitative evidence that lexicons are, indeed, more confusable than what would be expected by chance alone. I then present empirical evidence suggesting that toddlers have the tools to bypass these problems given that ambiguous or confusable words are constrained to appear in distinct context. Finally, I submit that the study of ambiguous words reveal factors that were currently missing from current accounts of word learning. Taken together this research suggests that ambiguous and confusable words, while present in the language, may be restricted in their distribution in the lexicon and that these restrictions reflect (in part) how children learn languages.

Awarded the Frances Mason Harris '26 Prize from Brown University in 2015. The Weaving Language series examines the poetics of weaving traditions through historical research as well as contemporary practices. Attempting to dismantle and rebuild commonplace understandings of the history of writing, Weaving Language focuses on fiber-based forms as a longstanding but often overlooked medium for record keeping, storytelling, and poetry. WEAVING LANGUAGE I: LEXICON is the first book in a three book series, and the last to be published in a trade edition. In the newly edited and expanded edition of WLI: Lexicon, weaving processes are mapped onto English grammar to suggest a method for reading woven works. Offering visual vocabularies as both discreet concrete poems as well as a collection of translatable terms, this book invites readers, writers, and weavers to participate by considering weaving as a system that can be decoded. Textile forms are broken into the basic building blocks of language, presented as a visual/textual lexicon. The book includes diagrams by Anni Albers with permissions from the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, as well as an afterward by Kit Schluter. Thanks to a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Ford Family Foundation, WLI: Lexicon is presently being funded for an expanded and multivocal edition, and will represent the work of a small collective of artists including Martha Tuttle, Allison Parrish, Sarah Zapata, Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Amaranth Borsuk and Imani Elizabeth Jackson. Originally published as an artists' book in an edition of 5 in 2015, books from the Weaving Language series are in the collections at the MoMA Library in New York, The Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Harris Collection at the John Hay Library, Brown University, Providence, RI, and the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection at the SAIC in Chicago, IL. "Weaving Language I: Lexicon is a strange and intriguing way to cross the mute and the written into a dialogue of akin and unmaking a weaving, a grammar and vocabulary with it's own rules of order by association. Not synesthesia but a stimulation of relations heretofore overlooked or even non-existent. A silent background of color and pattern aligned with a torrent of words brought into the same locale to make a beautiful, uncanny object."--Prize Committee, Literary Arts at Brown University "Weaving Language probes the relation of lines of thread with lines of text and posits a metaphorical synthesis of the two. A beautiful and intriguing book."--Rosemarie Waldrop "Francesca Capone has assembled a beautifully-made tool kit for many of us to pause and go further when we hear, "weaving is like writing."Weaving Language I: Lexicon actually dismisses the simile and goes straight into the thick of how it is that work with thread and color is a language, a grammar, and a way of expressing, being, and knowing. The argument is not that we should recover this way, but that it has always been here for us, in us, around us. This is a book meant to be studied--such a necessary text to push out the boundaries of poetics and textile studies, both!"--Jill Magi Literary Nonfiction. Essay. Hybrid. Art. Poetics.

This book is about the mental lexicon and opens an understanding of this aspect of human cognition. The mental lexicon is still a central topic in psycholinguistics and, more generally speaking, in cognitive science. Is it possible to define what is intended by the expression "mental lexicon", a concept coined by Oldfield as early as 1966? Are the terms that the authors have at their disposal still sufficient to discuss this hypothesised mental entity -- the mental lexicon -- which is intended to cover many different aspects of words? The authors propose as a working definition that the mental lexicon corresponds to the mental repository of all representations that are intrinsically related to words. This book extends its research in psycholinguistics and focuses on the word.

The Blackwell Handbook of Language Development provides a comprehensive treatment of the major topics and current concerns in the field; exploring the progress of 21st century research, its precursors, and promising research topics for the future. Provides comprehensive treatments of the major topics and current concerns in the field of language development Explores foundational and theoretical approaches Focuses on the 21st century's research into the areas of brain development, computational skills, bilingualism, education, and cross-cultural comparison Looks at language development in infancy through early childhood, as well as atypical development Considers the past work, present research, and promising topics for the future. Broad coverage makes this an excellent resource for graduate students in a variety of disciplines