This dissertation articulates and defends a view about linguistic competence called 'variabilism'. According to variabilism, the epistemic demands of full linguistic competence vary in a particular way. More specifically, variabilism holds that different individual lexical application conditions (individually essential metaphysical ways of being…

Fifteen children (grades 3-5) with specific language impairment (SLI) were asked to define 10 common nouns. Children with SLI scored significantly lower than children with typically developing language for both content and form. Results suggest that lexical access and/or lack of metalinguistic knowledge were potential causes for the lower scores…

A study focused on the nature and effect of constraints on the hypotheses that learners make about the meanings of words. Two experiments were conducted at a large midwestern university: the first, involving 68 undergraduate students divided randomly into two groups, tested taxonomic and durative constraints on nouns, and time of day and cessation…