However, the detailed developmental course and the underlying mechanism of the semantic reorganization for constructing a mature lexical system has not been sufficiently investigated. Researchers of lexical development have described the process of semantic reorganization in a number of semantic domains, including prepositions (e.g., Casasola, Bhagwat, & Burke, 2009 Clark, 1973), terms for spatial dimensions (e.g., Clark, 1972), container labels (Ameel et al., 2008), verbs for carrying actions (e.g., Saji et al., 2011), and verbs for locomotion (Malt, White, Ameel, & Storms, 2016). The view that understanding of word meanings evolves developmentally through a recurrent reorganization process has been proposed in the literature (e.g., Ameel, Malt, & Storms, 2008 Bowerman, 1978, 2005 Clark, 1987, 2006).
For example, to be able to use the color word blue, one needs to know that this word is surrounded by purple, green, and gray-and where in the continuous color space the boundary between blue and each of the three neighbors is drawn. In other words, learning of the adult-like meaning of a word must contain the understanding of what other words exist in the same lexical domain in the ambient language, and how this word is differentiated from the other words that surround it. To use a word appropriately in diverse contexts, the user needs to understand the meaning of the word in relation to other similar-meaning words (Saji et al., 2011). Word learning does not end when a child has successfully established mapping between a word and a referent in a given situation, or when s/he becomes able to generalize the word to limited situations. The results suggest that the process of system construction consists of at least two steps (i.e., mapping words to their category center and finding appropriate boundaries between neighboring words), with the quantity and the quality of the input contributing differently to the steps. However, cross-individual consistency in adults' use contributed most strongly for the adult-like boundary delineation. Furthermore, the model analyses revealed that broad-covering and high-frequency words are mapped to the center of the lexical category earlier.
The results showed that children of all ages were able to apply most of the chromatic words to the colors close to the center of each category, but even 5-year-olds struggle to delineate the boundaries between the words. We had 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old Japanese-speaking children and adults ( n = 20, 18, 19, and 19, respectively) produce names for 93 color swatches. This research investigated how children build up the language-specific system of the color lexicon, examining factors that play important roles for the construction of an adult-like color lexicon.
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