Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. The Phenomena
Sentences That Do Not Make Sense
Naturalness of Classes
Similarity of Natural Classes
Naturalness of Copredications
3. Developing a Theory
Goals
Underlying Knowledge
Historical Antecedents
Sommers' Theory
Relation to the Phenomena
4. Empirical Evaluation
On Using Intuitions
The Study of Anomaly
The Study of Natural Classes
The study of Class Similarity
The Study of Copredication
Methodological issues
5. Other Psychological Research
Semantic Memory Research
Natural Categories
Anomaly
Possible Lexical Items
Similarity
Metaphor
6. Origins of Ontological Knowledge
Children's Intuitions of Anomaly
The First Grade-School Study
Tree Representations
Increasing Differentiation
Ordered and Asymmetrical Differentiation
Terms Denoting Classes
Before Predicates
Methodological Issues
Limitations and Unanswered Questions
7. Follow-up Studies
The Second Grade-School Study
The M Constraint
Four Representative Cases
Developmental Patterns Reconsidered
The Preschool Study
A Study in a Different Language
8. Other Developmental Research
Anomaly
Word Meaning
Hierarchical Organization of Word Meaning
Realism
Metaskills
Causality
Animism
Classification
Hierarchical Tree Structures
9. A Closer Look at the Theory
Downward Tree Proliferation
Possible M-Constraint Violations
Contextual Influences
n-Place Predicates
Classes Without Unique Predicates
Distinguishing Metaphorical and Literal Meaning
Modal Notions
Other Ontological Systems
The Predicability Tree and Conceptual Knowledge
10. Constraints and Development
Reasons for the M Constraint
How Trees Develop
Appendix A. Sommers' Proof of the Law of Categorical Inclusion
Appendix B. Generating an M-Constrained Matrix from Random Data
Appendix C. Three Grade-School Studies
References
Author Index
Subject Index
