Partial Knowledge of Word Meanings

Partial knowledge of word meanings was investigated in 7 experiments. For each S, words were classified depending on whether they could be defined (known), checked as familiar (frontier), or mistakenly considered to be nonwords (unknown). Even when Ss denied a word was a part of the language, they often were able to distinguish between correct and incorrect uses of the word. Explanations based on materials, retrieval environments, and task demands could not account for the effects. Ss often had meaningful information about even unknown words (including definitional and contextual meaning), although they were unable, or unwilling, to use it. Although frontier words surpass unknown words in their access to information relevant to familiarity and lexicality judgments, both unknown words and frontier words can supply comparable information about meaning. The information used to judge familiarity or lexicality does not appear to be the same information used to determine the appropriate use of the word.