Words in the Mind

Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations and Symbols xiii Part I: Aims and Evidence 1 1 Welcome to Dictionopolis! 3 The human word-store 2 Links in the Chain 18 Assessing the evidence 3 Programming Dumbella 32 Modeling the mental lexicon 4 Brainy Matters 42 The physical underlay Part II: Basic Ingredients 51 5 Slippery Customers 53 Attempts to pin down the meaning of words 6 Bad Birds and Better Birds 66 Prototype theories 7 Whispering Chambers of the Imagination 80 Mental models 8 The Primordial Atomic Globule Hunt 90 The search for semantic primitives 9 Word-webs 99 Semantic networks 10 Close Companions 113 Words which cling together 11 Lexical All-sorts 119 Parts of speech 12 Verb Power 131 The role of verbs 13 Bits of Words 145 The internal architecture of words 14 Taking Care of the Sounds 157 Dealing with the sound patterns Part III: Newcomers 169 15 Multiple Meanings 171 The polysemy problem 16 Interpreting Ice-cream Cones 182 Metaphor and metonymy 17 Globbering Mattresses 194 Creating new words 18 What is a Bongaloo, Daddy? 209 How children learn the meaning of words 19 Aggergog Miggers, Wips and Gucks 222 How children cope with the sounds of words Part IV: The Overall Picture 235 20 Seeking and Finding 237 Selecting words 21 Organized Guesswork 248 Recognizing words 22 Odd Arrangements and Funny Solutions 261 The organization of the mental lexicon 23 Last Word 267 Final comments and future questions Notes 270 References 292 Index 327