Abstract

Children a re prodigious word learners . able to gain substantial information abou t a word's meaning o n the basis of even a single encounter with the word in context . T w o experiments a r e reported which test the hypothesis that the notion "possible word meaning' ' plays a role in constraining the inferences that adult language users make abou t new words encountered in coniext. T h e results indicate that subjects applied implicit knowledge of constraints on possible word meanings in making and evaluating hypotheses about unfamiliar words encountered in context and suggest that implicit knowledge of both universal and language-specific constraints on possible u o r d meanings may contr ibute to the remarkable speed with which children a n d adults acquire new words.